Programme for the European Union

I am prepared to invest all my knowledge and energy to turn Serbia into an economically strong and stable state, because it is the basic prerequisite for joining the European Union. It is understood that our legislature must be harmonised with the European principles and that we must adopt certain European standards. However, we must not neglect our own values. I am convinced that Serbia is capable of preserving and protecting all the best elements of its tradition and culture, because Serbia can offer Europe a lot.

The preparations for concluding the Agreement on Stabilisation and Association with the European Union were concluded in July 2002, after the EU-FRY Joint Consultative Task Force, which I co-chaired with Mr Priebe from the European Commission, had been working on it for a year. By the end of this year, the European Commission will have completed a feasibility study on the negotiations due to start next year. I expect that the Agreement on Stabilisation and Association will be concluded in 2003. After a couple of years of the implementation of this Agreement, our country will be granted the status of «candidate for membership in the European Union». I am certain that, with a lot of willpower and work, Serbia may become a full member of the European Union by 2010.

This presupposes a trading and customs system that will be in effect on the entire territory of the country, as well as common functional institutions that will have real jurisdiction in both Serbia and Montenegro. The Belgrade Agreement left this question unresolved, which is why I was not satisfied when I signed the Agreement in March this year. I knew that it was a problem we were bound to face sooner or later. All the signatories promised they would try to overcome these differences. The protracted process of harmonisation between Serbia and Montenegro, however, will result in prolonging our approach to the European Union. That is why further procrastination and insistence upon unprincipled compromises will not be acceptable to Serbia. I will do everything in my power to reach a compromise, but if the other side does not accept it, we shall have to look for the best solution for Serbia.

I fully agree with the objectives of the European Movement in Serbia; they are included in their entirety in my programme and the programme of the Democratic Party of Serbia. What I also have in mind is the entry of our country, on a full-partnership basis, into all European institutions and organisations, promoting the idea of European integration in Serbia by developing cultural, political and economic cooperation among the citizens, nations, regions and states of Europe, and, perhaps most of all, a democratic, federal Europe, based on the rule of law and social justice, capable of protecting and developing human rights.

To begin with, I would like to focus on the latter, for the very simple reason that I really do not believe that Europe can be reduced to the former European Coal and Steel Commission, even in a greatly extended form. What I fear are technically-biased interpretations of the very notion of Europe, because I firmly believe that Europe represents and has always represented a set of values, civilisational heritage of the first order, which certainly encompasses the areas of politics, the law and economy but cannot be reduced to these areas only. In point of fact, what we consider to be European heritage in these areas, even European standards these days, derives from the very essence of the notion of Europe. This essence amounts a set of moral and value criteria, first and foremost, the principle of freedom. In other words, it is a system of values that democracy is based upon.

Our strategic objective is entry into the European Union on a full-membership basis, and it is our wish to achieve this parallel with our neighbours. Even though this is not going to happen in the immediate future – I am not referring to the Agreement on Stabilisation and Association – it is essential both for our foreign and domestic policy that we should return to Europe. In any case, the acceptance of the European project in the transitional phase of our society is, in effect, a return to the social and political values that formed the basis of the status of Serbia and Montenegro as states following their international recognition at the Berlin Congress. I think that this democratic project can be a cohesive factor in the renewal of the Yugoslav union, just as it was in the development of post-war Europe, because Serbs, Montenegrins and whoever else lives in Yugoslavia with us can reach a consensus on it. I believe it goes without saying how important this is from the point of view of regional stability, but not regional stability only. The European option also reflects political realism, which we are in such great need of following decades of meandering. Needless to say, when I say Europe, I mean Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals.

The most important initial step on the path we have most certainly taken is, without any doubt, the institutionalisation of our relations through the establishment of a Joint Consultative Task Force with a view to bringing FRY to a position of concluding the Agreement on Stabilisation and Association with the European Union in the very near future, which is the first step in the process of gradual integration into the European Union. A feasibility study will be of particular importance here. However, in a more general, if you want, a more European and civilisational sense, I think that our entry into the Council of Europe, even though it may be on provisional basis (we are not the only country to be accepted in such a manner, after all) is of decisive importance. That is so because the Council of Europe, that is, membership in the Council of Europe, presupposes a number of legal, institutional frameworks and foundations without which democracy cannot develop.

As I have said, Europe is, first and foremost, civilisational heritage. But we must not forget that it was in Europe that the two most backward movements of the 20th century – fascism, that is, Nazism and communism – were created. They were backward because they endangered human freedom. It is an irony of fate that Europe is the cradle of both liberalism and totalitarianism. It is of particular importance that all these doctrines and their subsequent practical applications were in the name of certain higher values such as freedom, equality and common welfare. The same, unfortunately, goes for the systems that, allegedly in the name of the freedom of all, suppressed any form of individual freedom.

You may ask why I have said all this. Why I insist on the value aspect, the aspect of the rule of law and democracy and do not accept the currently prevalent, reduced sense of the notion of Europe. It is because I fear this drastic, bureaucratic reduction, impoverishment of the notions of Europe and European. I have said before that any form of production may be fully harmonised with the European standards, that the size of a pea or a raspberry may be in perfect conformity with the European standards, and yet they need not necessarily belong to Europe. And the other way round. In other words, we were in Europe even when we were not fully integrated into European economic and political institutions. And Europe was within us, no matter how much these values may have been artificially suppressed for decades.

There exists yet another definition: it is European to respect both oneself and others, one's own freedom and the freedom of another, to respect the principle of inviolability of state borders, to enhance mutual trust among states and nations and to respect human rights and the rights of minorities. In this way, we respect the fundamental values of European liberalism by cooperating with and consulting one another, by negotiating and concluding agreements, without anything in the way of imposition and dictate.

It is, of course, furthest from my mind to claim that we do not have an awful lot of problems to solve or that the task we are faced with is not difficult. It is difficult, but feasible. We should reintroduce the classical European framework of the law, institutions, the economy and everything else that forms the basis of a normal, stable democratic state because it is the only possible framework for us. It is important that we should manifest our true European essence and that we do not allow anyone, be it from the outside or from the inside, to endanger it and negate it. Also, it is important that Europe should hold its own and remain authentic, a real family of nations, whose every member is spiritually enriched, not impoverished and restricted through his/her membership.