Today, the Political Affairs and Democracy Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe did not accept the amendments proposed by the deputies from Serbia and Republika Srpska on the Draft Opinion concerning the application of self-proclaimed Kosovo for membership in the Council of Europe, reported Snežana Novaković Bursać, Vice President of the Parliamentary Assembly, to Srna.
According to her statements, the amendments proposed by Dunja Simonović Bratić, Biljana Pantić Pilja, Elvira Kovač, and Dubravka Filipovski from Serbia, along with those by Bursać and Branislav Borenović from Republika Srpska/BiH, which aimed to correct the text to align it with the actual legal status of Kosovo* and thereby adjust the opinion to recommend against Kosovo’s admission, were not adopted.
Bursać confirmed that the committee session in Strasbourg, which discussed the Draft Opinion on Kosovo’s Council of Europe membership application, concluded without accepting the Serbian and Republika Srpska amendments.
She also noted that amendments proposed by a group of deputies from Italy and Hungary, which pertained to Kosovo’s commitments under international agreements for establishing a community of Serb municipalities, were not adopted.
However, amendments by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination, which did not alter the essence of the Opinion recommending the Council of Ministers of the Council of Europe to decide on the admission of self-proclaimed Kosovo, were accepted.
Bursać, a member of the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy from BiH, highlighted this as a breakdown of international law and principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty of internationally recognized countries to the detriment of Serbia, a member of the Council of Europe, which constitutionally includes Kosovo and Metohija.
“Self-proclaimed Kosovo does not meet the conditions to be a ‘state’ under the UN Charter, and thus cannot be considered a state under Article 4 of the Statute of the Council of Europe. This territory has been forcibly separated from the sovereign and internationally recognized state of Serbia, which Serbia, BiH, and many other countries have not and will not recognize,” she emphasized.
Bursać pointed out that the key issues for the entire international community regarding this case are whether the principle of territorial integrity of states will continue to be respected given today’s decisions, and whether this generation of politicians has the authority to amend and adapt the Statute of the Council of Europe according to the demands of forcibly separated territories and someone’s specific needs.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will consider the Opinion in its afternoon session today, which requires a two-thirds majority of the present deputies to be adopted and forwarded to the Council of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
Bursać and Borenović have already announced that they will not support the Opinion, i.e., they will vote against the admission of self-proclaimed Kosovo to the Council of Europe.
The spring session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, taking place in Strasbourg from April 15 to 19, is expected to feature a debate and vote on the membership application of self-proclaimed Kosovo to the Council of Europe.
Source: RTRS
