Tonino Picula (BETAPHOTO/European Parliament/Michel CHRISTEN)
Tonino Picula, the European Parliament's new rapporteur for Serbia, is to visit Serbia next week, Radio Free Europe learned from sources at the EP on Feb. 19.
This will be Picula's first visit since he was named permanent rapporteur for Serbia before the EP late last year. It is currently not known which officials Picula will meet with while visiting the country. The visit will follow a discussion by the EP Committee on Foreign Affairs on the outline report on Serbia penned by Picula scheduled for Feb. 20.
The draft report reads that the EP sends its condolences to the families of the 15 people who died after the concrete overhang at the Novi Sad railway station collapsed on them on Nov. 1 and calls for the launching of full and transparent legal proceedings after the appropriate authorities conduct inquiries. RFE reported that this would be the first official document of a European institution to condemn violent assaults on peaceful protesters in the severest terms and express concern that some of those protesters were arrested and had judicial proceedings launched against them.
RFE recalled that Picula's appointment and subsequent statements met with strongly-worded reactions from officials in Belgrade.
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