The European Parliament (EP) Foreign Affairs Committee will discuss Thursday the draft resolution on Serbia's European integration urging the European Council to approve Serbia's EU candidate status in March under the assumption that the Serbian authorities will by then fulfill the conditions determined at the EU leaders' meeting in December 2011.

The EP believes that Serbia deserves the EU candidate status, but besides commendation, it also voices criticism in connection with corruption, judiciary and the protection of human rights, says the draft to which Tanjug has had access.

The draft resolution will be presented to the EP Foreign Affairs Committee by EP Rapporteur for Serbia Jelko Kacin.
The draft resolution commends Serbia's progress in terms of internal reforms, regional cooperation, and brining war crime suspects to justice.

At the same time, the draft resolution expresses concern over developments in north Kosovo in the second part of 2011, and the fact that the freedom of movement of the international forces was hindered.

However, the EP welcomes Serbian President Boris Tadic's call for removal of barricades, and continuation of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue on technical issues.

The draft resolution also notes that “intertwined interests of political parties and tycoons sustain systemic corruption,” and calls for more active engagement on the part of law enforcement agencies to ensure thorough investigation with regard to irregularities reported in the fields of privatization process and of public procurement.

The EP is seriously concerned by repeated allegations of misuse of Article 359 of Criminal Code on abuse of office, and calls on the authorities to swiftly proceed with a revision of the Criminal Code to ensure it is in line with European standards and to immediately put an end to bringing charges under the provision of abuse of office, which is undermining the trust in the
rule of law in the country.

Apart from that, the draft resolution draws attention to “serious deficiencies” in the functioning of the witness protection programme regarding cases of war crimes which resulted in a number of witnesses voluntarily opting out of the programme after being systematically intimidated. The EP calls on the Interior Ministry and war crimes prosecutor's office to actively engage in efforts to ensure safety and well-being of all witnesses participating in the protection programme.

The draft resolution notes certain examples of discrimination, referring especially to the LGBT population and strongly criticizes last year's banning of Pride Parade. The EP also underlines difficult position of some national minorities, the Roma in particular.

After two rounds of debate during which the draft will certainly be amended, its final version will be adopted in March.