Balkans leaders discuss common market after EU snub

Yahoo – AFP, November 10, 2019

The three Balkans leaders want to ease trade and travel between their
countries, and others in the region (AFP Photo/Robert ATANASOVSKI)

Ohrid (Republic of North Macedonia) (AFP) - Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia discussed setting up a common market at a summit Sunday, weeks after the European Union snubbed bids by Skopje and Tirana to open membership talks.

The leaders of the three countries met at Lake Ohrid, in North Macedonia, after the EU last month refused to start membership talks with Albania and North Macedonia.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, his North Macedonian counterpart Zoran Zaev and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who launched the common market initiative in October, attended Sunday's meeting.

"We should not be afraid of our own shadow and to do something for ourselves," Vucic told reporters.

"We did not invent anything better for the past 30 years in the Balkans."

"We all want to be part of EU," but "it depends on them," he added. Serbia opened membership talks with the bloc in 2014.

This new initiative is aimed at establishing the free movement of goods and people by 2021 in the divided region.

Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo have also been invited to take part in the project.

But while Bosnia and Montenegro sent representatives to Sunday's meeting, Kosovo was absent.

"The vision of Kosovo is its accession to EU and NATO" which cannot be replaced by "any other regional initiative", Kosovo President Hashim Thaci said in a message posted on social media.

"This initiative makes no sense as long as Serbia and Bosnia do not recognise Kosovo independence."

Serbia's former ethnic Albanian-majority province proclaimed independence in 2008, but Belgrade has still not recognised it. Nor does Bosnia, due to the opposition of Bosnian Serbs.

The issue remains extremely sensitive in the Balkans region, which was torn apart in a series of wars in the 1990s that accompanied the collapse of Yugoslavia.

Rama voiced regret over Pristina's stance over the initiative.

"It is also in the interest of Kosovo, its citizens and market that the border between Kosovo and Serbia be abolished" despite the unresolved dispute between the two countries, he said.

The three leaders present agreed on introducing a common work permit and allowing travel between the three countries with an ID card only.

They also discussed setting up a "mini Schengen" visa-free zone to facilitate free movement of foreign visitors within the three countries.

And they agreed to ease customs procedures and border controls to accelerate the passage of trucks.

Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia have a combined population of nearly 20 million people.

France led last month's opposition to the EU membership talks for Albania and North Macedonia, although Denmark and the Netherlands also expressed reservations.

Albania will host the next meeting of the Balkans initiative on December 21.

Hundreds march through Kosovo's capital for the strongly conservative country's first gay pride parade

Hundreds march through Kosovo's capital for the strongly conservative country's first gay pride parade pic.twitter.com/v4ngrU18bS

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 10, 2017

Serbs tear down contested wall in divided Kosovo town

Yahoo – AFP, February 5, 2017

Bulldozers tear down a concrete wall in the Kosovo town of Mitrovica on February 5,
2017 (AFP Photo/Armend NIMANI)

Kosovska Mitrovica (Kosovo) (AFP) - Serbs in the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica on Sunday began tearing down a concrete wall on the banks of the Ibar river that had drawn the ire of the Kosovar authorities.

The mayor of the city's Serb-dominated northern sector, Goran Rakic, had said the barrier was built last month to protect a new pedestrian zone near a bridge that connects to the southern zone, home to most of the city's ethnic Albanian population.

But the two-metre-high (six and a half feet) wall, stretching some 100 metres, was seen by many as an effort to cement the town's divisions.

On Sunday, two bulldozers were employed by a crew of workers to start knocking down the barrier, an AFP journalist reported.

The move was the first evidence of a thaw between Belgrade and Pristina after weeks of strained relations, and came after EU-sponsored talks between leaders of the two sides in Brussels last week.

"It's an extremely good sign, showing that both sides can reach an agreement given sufficient political will," said Nataliya Apostolova, the EU representative to Kosovo.

Tensions had been running high in Kosovo since last month, when Belgrade sent a train towards Kosovo painted in the colours of the Serbian flag, bearing the words "Kosovo is Serbia" in multiple languages, and decorated inside with Serbian Orthodox imagery.

Kosovo called it a "provocation", and the train was stopped from crossing the border over fears it would be attacked, according to Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic.

Members of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority were also outraged by the arrest in France in January of former prime minister Ramush Haradinaj, under an international warrant issued by Serbia.

Belgrade wants to try him for alleged war crimes committed against civilians during the 1990s conflict.

Kosovo's ethnic Albanian insurgents fought Serbian forces in 1998-1999. The former province unilaterally declared independence in 2008, but Serbia denies Kosovo's sovereignty.

Kosovo on the threshold of EU membership

Kosovo is the last southeastern European country to sign the EU Association Agreement. But the country still has a long road to EU membership.

Deutsche Welle, 26 Oct 2015

Kosovo and EU flag

"To us, this is a historic moment, a historic step. Kosovo has begun an irreversible journey towards EU membership," asserted Kosovo's minister for EU integration, Bekim Collaku, in an interview with Deutsche Welle.

Together with the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Isa Mustafa, he will sign the EU Stabilization and Association Agreement on in Strasbourg on Tuesday. The goal of the agreement is to create required conditions before accession talks with the EU are initiated. In doing so, Kosovo commits itself to implementing the necessary reforms, while the EU assumes responsibility for providing the country with additional support.

Kosovo's government is aware of the fact that this first step is being taken despite many challenges, like the recent blockades and violence in Kosovar parliament, where the opposition repeatedly set off tear gas. They were protesting against an agreement mediated by the EU about autonomy rights for the Serbian minority and the treaty that has finally fixed the border between Kosovo and Montenegro.

Ever since the Kosovo War in 1999 – and especially since the country's declaration of independence in 2008 – the country has adopted several laws that adhere to EU standards. "Kosovo has very modern laws. The problem is enforcing them, because only a constitutional state and a sound judicial infrastructure will attract foreign investors. And foreign investments are needed," said the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce in Kosovo, Safet Gerxhaliu, in an interview with DW.

Only poverty is plentiful

Kosovo has often been called Europe's poorhouse. According to the World Bank, the average per capita income in 2014 was $2863.47 (around 2,600 euros) per year. The official unemployment rate remains high, at 35 percent. The transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy was made by privatizing many state-owned assets. However, liberalization has been fraught with irregularities and corruption. Last year, Kosovo's economy grew by around three percent.

Despite progress made since independence, Kosovo's economy is still weak. More than 90 percent of goods in Kosovo are imported from foreign countries. About 18 percent of the population is said to be suffering from severe poverty, meaning that people must make ends meet with less than a dollar a day. And around 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) is maintained by payments transferred from the diaspora. Bureaucracy is too cumbersome and is still rooted in central planning. Kosovo also faces the challenge of tackling corruption and organized crime, and it is suspected that high-ranking politicians are involved.

Serbian blockade

At the moment, Kosovo does not enjoy the full support of the EU. Its declaration of independence has been recognized by 111 countries to date; among them are 23 EU members. And although they support the Association Agreement with Kosovo, Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus, Greece and Romania refuse to recognize the country's independence. Relations with Serbia have strained the integration process, as Serbia adamantly opposes Kosovo's independence. Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic used the world "terrible" to describe the EU's recent call for a complete normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

The Balkans' new zeal for protecting whistleblowers

Balkan countries vying to join the EU have passed, or are in the middle of passing, better whistleblower protection laws than most EU member states have. Ironically, the EU is co-financing this new anti-corruption zeal.

Deutsche Welle, 23 July 2015

It's impossible to fight corporate corruption if you don't know it is happening. But whistleblowers never get an easy ride, and their stories often end with the realization that if they'd known what they were getting themselves into, they wouldn't have become whistleblowers at all.

Visnja Marilovic was a bookkeeper at the Skenderija cultural and sports center in Sarajevo, when, one day in 2010, she was asked to process an invoice for a lot of beds. She realized that not only was her boss furnishing his new hotel with the company's money, but that evidence of corruption was passing across her desk every day. To Marilovic, reporting the crime wasn't whistleblowing - it was her job. "As a financial official, I was responsible for the documentation to be accurate and true," she told DW. "I thought I was protecting the company from disaster and my workplace altogether."

After googling how to file charges, and getting prosecutors to investigate, she assumed the director would be replaced and they could carry on working. Instead, she got fired and went through nearly three years of misery until her boss' trial finally began earlier this year. "I passed hell with my children and for two months I had to live under police protection because of threats," she said. "If I knew how much my kids had to suffer I would not have done it."

Progressive laws

Delegates from across the region
gathered at a Sarajevo hotel

With her life turned upside down, Marilovic now works at the Center for Responsible Democracy, a Sarajevo-based NGO that helped to draw up Bosnia's brand new whistleblower protection law - which came into effect in January this year. Bosnia is not the only country in the region that has written whistleblower protection into its legislation in the past few years - so have Romania, Serbia, Kosovo, Moldova, and Montenegro. Albania is in the middle of passing one through its parliament, while the Bulgarian government last year released an in-depth report that includes legislative proposals.

It all amounts to a surge of legislative activity in the region that was distilled a few weeks ago in a windowless hotel conference room in downtown Sarajevo. Legislators, government advisers, ministry officials, NGO workers, and actual whistleblowers came together for a conference organized by the international NGO "Blueprint for Free Speech" and the Regional Anti-Corruption Initiative (RAI) to compare whistleblower protection notes.

"Countries like Bosnia, long thought of as more economically backward, are now moving forward more seriously on whistleblower protection than Western European countries," said Suelette Dreyfus, executive director of Blueprint for Free Speech. "If Western Europe doesn't lift its game, it will end up being left behind in the dust."

The irony is of course that many of these efforts are being co-financed by the European Union, even though Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal, for instance, have no dedicated whistleblower protection laws.

Meanwhile, Blueprint's Mark Worth, who says he has studied around 70 whistleblower laws and draft laws around the world, explained the priorities to those assembled: "The three things a whistleblower needs are: a place to disclose information, protection from retaliation, and for the thing to be investigated. The law has to create loophole-free provisions and mechanisms for those three things to be covered."

Curing the cancer

Deputy Justice Minister Idlir Peci is
about to get Albania's new whistleblower
protection law through parliament

In the heat of the summer afternoon, with phrases like "Can we at least agree that pre-court protection is necessary?" flying across the conference room, the Albanian Deputy Justice Minister Idlir Peci, his shirt-sleeves rolled up, explained that he had been stung by his country's terrible record on corruption.

"I spent 20 years in the Netherlands, and I decided to come back to my country because I saw a will to change things," he told DW. "I think all the countries in the region are tired of being dragged down. And I think the politicians are also realizing they cannot hide behind their fingers and sell beautiful stories to the public without really accomplishing these beautiful stories."

But where is this new energy coming from? "My motivation comes from all the reports, especially from Transparency International, but also all kinds of other rankings, where Albania scores very badly," he said. "And from the public perception that corruption is a cancer in society that has to be cured."

A polite nudge from the EU

Yavor Siderov, advisor to the Bulgarian deputy prime minister, was making similar noises: "There seems to be a very concerted effort with regards to anti-corruption and whistleblowing, which is amazing. It's a very positive trend, given that the Balkans are constantly being given as examples of rampant corruption."

Both Peci and Siderov also said that the competition to join the EU was acting as a spur - as was the money the EU offers to help fund the laws. "It's always a good thing to have the European Union provide you with a polite nudge down the road of transparency and anti-corruption," said Siderov.

As the conference wound down, Mark Worth delivered a closing pep talk to encourage the assembled legislators. "It's a very delicate issue, and I'm hearing a lot of tentativeness," he told the various delegations. "I think you should be brave, because the whistleblower's being brave."

But as Marina Micunovic, a senior advisor at the Montenegro Ministry of Justice, underlined afterwards, the point of a whistleblower law is to end the need for bravery: "At the moment, we are just applauding the ones who are brave, but they are not our target group," she said. "We need to encourage the ones who are afraid."

Related Articles:

HSBC 'SwissLeaks' leaker urges more support for whistleblowers
HSBC bank 'helped clients dodge millions in tax'

Martin van Pernis, Chairman, Committee Whistleblowers advice

center, speaking at the launch of the advice center Whistleblowers

 in 2012 (NRC/ANP)

Whistleblowers need better protection: helpline

14 Dutch whistleblowers contact US authorities

Advice Centre for Whistleblowers in The Netherlands

Kosovo athletes to head for Rio

Yahoo - AFP, 9 Dec 2014

Kosovo Albanians wave the Kosovo flag during a celebration marking the 4th
 anniversary of Kosovo's declaration of independence in Pristina on February 17,
2012 (Photo by Armend Nimani)

The International Olympic Committee on Tuesday gave official recognition to Kosovo allowing its athletes to take part in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The IOC executive recognised the former Serbian province, which declared its independence in 2008, in October.

"This is one big day," Besim Hasani, president of the Kosovo Olympic Committee, told the IOC session.

"This is the beginning of a new era for the Olympic movement in Kosovo."

"Now they can start to prepare for Rio," IOC president Thomas Bach said after the decision was agreed unanimously by the full 104-member assembly.

Serbia refuses to accept the independence of Kosovo, where NATO-led airstrikes were used in 1999 to stop an offensive by Serbian forces against ethnic-Albanian separatists.

Bach said that Serbia had accepted Kosovo's membership "in the interests of the athletes."

However, in Belgrade Serbia's Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic "strongly condemned the decision" and "presents an abuse and politicisation of sport."

"We consider it unacceptable and contrary to the Olympic Charter" according to which a new member could be "an independent state recognised by the entire international community," Dacic said in a statement.

In Pristina, Memli Krasniqi, Kosovo Sport Minister said the decision "finally ends a very long period of injustice and discrimination and isolation which has plagued Kosovo's sports community for more than two decades."

Kosovo is now the 205th member of the IOC and its 50th member from Europe.

Kosovo's Olympic committee has 30 sporting federations as members and six -- table tennis, archery, judo, yachting, weightlifting and modern pentathlon -- are full members of international federations. Seven more are close to being recognised.

Catastrophic floods bring down Bosnia ethnic barriers

Yahoo – AFP, Rusmir Smajilhodzic, 20 May 2014

A photo shows houses over a ravine after a landslide occurred in the flooded

 village of Kosova, near the northern Bosnian city of Doboj, on May 19, 2014

(AFP Photo/Elvis Barukcic )

Zepce (Bosnie-Herzégovine) (AFP) - When Ibro Begic decided to tackle the hazardous mountain road to reach those stricken by record floods near his Bosnian town, he was also challenging deep ethnic divisions left over from the brutal conflict of the 1990s.

When news reached him last week that the Serb-populated town of Doboj had been inundated, Begic immediately called on 10 friends to put together a relief operation.

It was a generous move, made remarkable by the fact that Begic is a Bosnian Muslim and a former soldier who fought the Serbs during the country's horrific civil war between 1992 and 1995.

"During the war, we were in enemy armies," he told AFP. "But the war is history. Humanity is something else."

Villagers inspect damaged road after a

 landslide in the flooded village of Kosova,

 near the northern Bosnian city of Doboj,

 on May 19, 2014 (AFP Photo/Elvis

Barukcic )

Having gathered supplies including milk, sheets and rubber boots, Begic set off along the mountain pass -- the only road still open to Doboj from his town of Tesanj in central Bosnia.

He says the response he received from the Serbs in Doboj, one of the worst-hit towns where at least 20 people have died or are missing from the floods, was immense gratitude mixed with "shock".

"God asks us all to help each other in need. I am certain that the Serbs would do the same," Begic said.

'A turning point'

It is certainly not the only instance in Bosnia where the difficult legacy of the war -- which has left the country politically divided between Serbs, Croats and Muslims -- was put to one side during the devastating flooding of the past week.

The small town of Zepce, around 30 kilometres (18 miles) further south from Tesanj, is mostly populated by Croats.

When a stream of Muslims began to arrive here from villages dotted around the region, few expected a warm welcome. The experience was a painful reminder of the war when tens of thousands were expelled from their homes by both Croats and Serbs.

But this time around, they were met with nothing but friendship.

A local high school gym in Zepce was ready to shelter the first group of evacuees from the Muslim village of Zeljezno Polje.

One of the villagers, Elvir Cizmic, a soldier during the war, told AFP: "Honestly, I did not expect such a solidarity. In just a few hours, people brought food, clothes and offered their homes to the families."

Around 30 to 40 people, mainly elderly women, were sheltering in the school when AFP visited, while dozens of young volunteers moved between them offering assistance.

"No one asked us for our name or our religion. They helped us in a way that I would not expect even from Muslims," Hanifa Masic, a 68-year-old evacuee, told AFP.

She hugged one of the young volunteers, a Croat called Ivana Grlic, who looked happy to help.

For Cizmic, the disaster marks a "turning point in relations between the three communities".

"I believe it will greatly help to regain trust between the people who had been pushed into the war," he said.

'Solidarity'

Like nothing else in the past two decades, the natural disaster has allowed people to ignore the divisive nationalism spouted by many of their political leaders.

Bosnian Hanifa Masic (2rd L), 68, from the village of Zeljezno Polje, is comforted

 by young volunteers at a refugee collective center in Zepce, after she lost her home

following a landslide in her village, on May 19, 2014 (AFP Photo/Elvis Barukcic )

Even Milorad Dodik, the fiercely nationalist president of the Bosnian Serb entity, had to express his gratitude to the Muslims who came to help their Serb neighbours in the northern town of Samac.

"I thank you on behalf of all residents of Samac to whom aid was brought by the (mainly Muslim) town of Gradacac, which provided inflatable boats and rescuers," Dodik said.

The compliment was returned by Edhem Camdzic, an Islamic mufti from the northern town of Banja Luka, who said he had come across an "honourable man, a Serb, who has been rescuing people with his inflatable boat regardless of their ethnicity" during a tour of Muslim villages.

"Amid this tragedy, I am so delighted to see this solidarity between people who generously helped each other," said Camdzic.

More than a quarter of Bosnia's 3.8 million population has been affected by the worst floods in a century.

The Bosnian war claimed some 100,000 lives and displaced two million people, almost half the country's pre-war population.

Related Articles:

Thousands flee floods in Bosnia and Serbia as death toll rises

Balkan floods threaten Serbia power plant on River Sava

EU sets date for Serbia membership talks

Deutsche Welle, 18 December 2013

Serbia has taken a step closer to joining the European Union. The bloc has set a date for the start of accession talks in recognition of Belgrade's democratic reforms and efforts in normalizing relations with Kosovo.

The European Union will begin long-awaited membership talks with Serbia on January 21, the bloc's Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle announced following a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.

The EU ministers for European Affairs had "acknowledged [Serbia's] reform and normalization efforts," Füle wrote on Twitter. "First intergovernmental conference planned for 21 January."

Serbia has long hoped to become the bloc's 29th member, following in the footsteps of neighbor Croatia which was granted membership in July.

"This is an historic event for Serbia, a day that many generations of citizens and numerous governments have awaited," Prime Minister Ivica Dacid said on the national RTS TV network.

"I am proud that this government reached it," he added.

European leaders were insistent, however, that the former pariah state first normalize relations with Kosovo. The two nations have been at odds since Kosovo broke away from Belgrade, unilaterally declaring independence in 2008.

Serbia - alongside five other EU states - still refuses to recognize Kosovo's independence.

Months of EU-brokered talks resulted in an agreement in April, however, which aimed at ending conflict between Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority and a pocket of some 50,000 Serbs in the north.

In a further sign of reform, ethic Serbs took part in a local election in northern Kosovo for the first time in November.

While Tuesday's announcement marks a significant step forward, the process for joining the bloc can take years. Of the five other nations once part of the former Yugoslavia, only Slovenia and Croatia have been granted membership.

ccp/av (AFP, Reuters, dpa)

Serbia, Kosovo finally strike historic deal

Google – AFP, Claire Rosemberg (AFP), 19 April 2013

Kosovo's PM Hashim Thaci (R) and Serbian PM Ivica Dacic (L) pose with

Catherine Ashton (2ndL) and Alexander Vershbow (Pool/AFP, Yves Logghe)

BRUSSELS — Serbia and its former province of Kosovo initialled a historic deal Friday to normalise ties, a move key to the future of the Western Balkans and destined also to bring both closer to the European Union.

Hailed as a milestone deal by EU leaders, the premiers of Serbia and Kosovo, Ivica Dacic and Hashim Thaci, put their signatures to a 15-point agreement struck after two years of tough talks to reduce mutual tension.

"What we are seeing is a step away from the past and, for both of them, a step closer to Europe," said EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Serbian Prime Minister Ivica
Dacic (C) at NATO headquarters
in Brussels on April 19, 2013
(Pool/AFP, Yves Logghe)

Fourteen years after the end of the war and five after Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia, hopes are that the deal will turn the page on Europe's last Balkans trouble-spot.

"The agreement will help us heal the wounds of the past," Thaci said. "This agreement represents the start of a new era, an era of reconciliation and inter-state cooperation."

Dacic said "Serbia's proposals were accepted. I initialled a proposed text that both sides will decide upon in the following days to say whether they accept it or refuse it."

But in the northern Kosovan city of Kosovska Mitrovica, Kosovo Serbs called for a referendum and dubbed the deal "the worst surrender and betrayal" ever perpetrated by Belgrade.

Discussions between the two premiers, crucial to future ties with the EU, were the second in Brussels this week after they hurried back on Ashton's request less than 48 hours after the collapse of earlier talks.

EU ministers meeting Monday were waiting for the outcome of the Serbia-Kosovo talks to decide whether to open the door to EU membership to Belgrade, which hopes to be given a date to launch membership talks at a June EU summit.

Without an agreement by Monday, Serbia's integration into the EU would have been delayed indefinitely.

Pristina still needs to win recognition by five of the 27 EU states but hopes meanwhile to be rewarded for mending fences with Belgrade by signing a pre-accession pact with the EU -- also to be announced at the June summit.

The deal was hailed around Europe, with the Vienna-based Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe saluting a "courageous accord" that marked "the beginning of a new chapter".

"I commend the leadership in Belgrade and Pristina for their courage and vision in reaching this agreement," said Leonid Kozhara, chairperson of the international monitoring body and Ukrainian foreign minister.

A man walks on a bridge in the divided

town of Mitrovica on April 2, 2013 

(AFP/File, Armend Nimani)

Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger said the accord was a "win-win" solution for all.

Ashton's office would not publish the 15-point text which focuses on how much autonomy to give ethnic Serbs in Kosovo who refuse to recognise Pristina's authority.

Thaci said there would be further examination of the terms and the Serbian government website said it would respond formally to the initialled agreement by Monday.

While there has been considerable progress in the two years of talks to reduce tensions, a deal got stuck on the fate of 40,000 ethnic Serbs in north Kosovo who refuse to recognise Pristina's authority and have set up their own "parallel" structures.

Serbia wanted Kosovo to agree to decentralised Serb "municipalities" in the northern enclave with their own police and courts to guarantee ethnic Serbs fair representation in Kosovo.

But Pristina was wary of Belgrade meddling in Kosovo affairs through the Serb community and refused to see "a state within a state" in its north.

Serbian media said Wednesday that the EU was offering a compromise in which the northern Serbs would be guaranteed a fair share of regional and local police chiefs as well as the presidency of a regional court.

The EU offer suggested NATO be put in charge of supervising security, media said.

Serbia continues to refuse to recognise Kosovo's independence, even though more than 90 countries have done so, including the United States and all but five EU member states.

The two premiers later met NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who said the alliance stood ready to help implement the accord.

"I am very happy for NATO to contribute to the conclusion of an historic agreement," he said. "NATO will continue to ensure a safe and secure environment throughout Kosovo."

NATO intervened in the breakaway province of Kosovo in 1999 to force the withdrawal of Serb forces and once that was achieved, set up the KFOR force, now reduced to some 5,000 troops, to ensure security.

Europol arrests 103 in migrant smuggling network

Deutsche Welle, 30 january 2013

European police have arrested 103 people in 10 countries in a major migrant smuggling sting. Police called it the biggest raid on a migrant smuggling network in the history of the European Union.

"The arrested persons are suspected of being involved in the clandestine smuggling of a large number of irregular migrants into and within the European Union," Europe-wide police agency Europol said Wednesday from its headquarters in The Hague.

The smuggling network specialized in bringing in migrants from the Middle East, especially Libya, Iraq and Syria, mainly through Turkey and the western Balkans, Europol added.

"They were often smuggled in inhuman and dangerous conditions, such as in very small hidden compartments in the floors of buses and trucks, in freight trains or in boats," the agency said.

According to police, migrants sometimes died en route, including one incident when 16 drowned in the river Tisza near the Hungarian-Serbian border in 2009.

Organization 'significantly disrupted'

More than 1,200 police searched 117 houses simultaneously, with officials confiscating a large number of mobile phones, laptops, and bank statements, as well as a semi-automatic rifle with a large amount of ammunition and over 176,500 euros ($240,000) in cash.

Police in Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Turkey and Kosovo made the early-morning arrests.

"We significantly disrupted this main organization," said Nicholas Dove, the head of the organized crime unit of the European Union's Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo.

"This is not a cash on delivery business, this is a cash up front business," said Dove. "Some people who were let down ended up in places where they didn't intend to be."

"Then there's the knock-on effect of people being illegally in countries in Western Europe with no status here. How do they exist? They get involved in street crime. This is hugely damaging to human beings but also to society and the economy," added Dove.

Officials said about 20 members of the organization remained unknown, but pledged to track them down as well.

dr/kms (Reuters, AFP)

Kosovo set for key step towards full independence

Deutsche Welle, 10 September 2012

Kosovo is set to take key step towards full independence as the international authority that has supervised the former Serbian province for more than four years wraps up its work.

Representatives of the 25 countries that make up the International Steering Group (ISG) were to meet in Kosovo's capital, Pristina, for the last time on Monday to formally end its supervision of the country.

The chairman of the International Civilian Office, Peter Feith, and Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci are two of the key figures set to attend the meeting.

An ISG statement said the decision to wind down its activities came due to the Kosovo government's "clear support of a democratic and multi-ethnic state."

The vast majority of Kosovo's population is ethnic-Albanian but there is also a small minority of Serbs living mainly in the north, along the country's border with Serbia.

The ISG, which includes 23 European Union member countries as well as the United States and Turkey, was set up shortly after Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in early 2008. The ISG members are among the 89 countries that have recognized Kosovo. Notably absent from that list however is Serbia, which says it will never recognize its former province as an independent state.

Two days of celebrations are to be kicked off with an open-air concert in Pristina's main square on Monday evening.

Despite the end of the ISG's mission, there will continue to be a major international presence in the former Serbian province. Both the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping presence will remain in the country, as will the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the European law-enforcement mission EULEX.

"In reality, with EULEX, KFOR and UNMIK ... a different sort of supervision remains in place - the mission changes its form, but the essence remains," Kosovo analyst Illir Deda told Belgrade TV B92.

pfd/kms (dpa, AFP)

Related Article:

International Steering Group passes sovereignty to Kosovo

Kosovo granted full independence, peacekeepers to stay

Deutsche Welle, 2 July 2012

An international group has declared Kosovo a sovereign state. The former Serbian province will soon run its own government, but peacekeepers will stay to diffuse tensions between ethnic Serbs and ethnic Albanians.

Kosovo is to receive full status as a sovereign state beginning in September, according to an announcement made on Monday by an international committee in Vienna.

The International Steering Group (ISG)-made up of 23 European nations, the United States, and Turkey-has been overseeing Kosovo since it unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

"This is a clear sign of the confidence that is being placed in Kosovo," Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger told the dpa news agency. “It is now mature enough to stand on its own feet and to take over full responsibility for the future of all its citizens," he said.

Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci called the decision “historic” for the former Serbian province.

‘Much remains to be done,' says ISG

The ISG's decision came after four years of supervising Kosovo's implementation of United Nations guidelines for autonomy. Monday's announcement noted the country's great strides toward building a democratic state that guarantees the rights of all of its ethnic communities.

Despite the new status, international peacekeepers are to remain in the country beyond September. Tensions persist in the north between Serbs, who form the majority in that region and the ethnic Albanian authorities. The announcement did not indicate how long the NATO-led peacekeeping force KFOR or EU police would stay in Kosovo.

A final end to foreign rule

The new status will mark the culmination of a process which began when NATO forces launched a 1999 bombing campaign to end inter-ethinic fighting in Kosovo which effectively ended Serbia's rule over the territory. Subsequently, Kosovo was placed under UN administration until its 2008 declaration of independence.

Kosovo's minority Serb population does not recognize the government in Pristina. It also worries that the majority Albanian population abuse its power once the international community leaves.

Belgrade said the ISG's decision was bad news for the Kosovo's Serb minority.

"When any international mission in Kosovo leaves, it can mean a greater danger for both Serbs and Serbia," Serbia's state secretary for Kosovo, Oliver Ivanovic, told Belgrade's B92 television.

kms/pfd (dpa, AFP)