The Council of Europe (CoE) Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg on Jan. 25 adopted a resolution calling on Belgrade and Pristina to continue the dialog and implement the achieved agreements.

According to the resolution, adopted with 90 votes for and three against, while three MPs abstained from voting, Serbia has achieved considerable progress in many areas, but noted that certain key problems, such as judicial reform, fight against corruption and election law had not been solved yet.

Before monitoring could end, Belgrade's remaining tasks include judicial reform, efficient anti-corruption regulations, improving situation in the media and rights of minorities, Roma in particular, according to the document.

In the next period, the CoE will direct its attention to the mechanisms for establishing sustainable democracy, including judicial reform, building a transparent party financing system, independent media and full implementation of law on freedom of speech and association.

Seventeen amendments were submitted to the resolution, of which nine were adopted, including the one on improving the status of the minorities and the prevention of violation of sexual orientation freedom.

The assembly also adopted the amendment calling on Belgrade to "bring to justice the helpers" of Hague tribunal indictees Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic.

The Serbian delegation expressed regrets that the resolution did not propose the end of monitoring of Serbia.

Micunovic: CoE Report on Serbia favorable

Serbian Council of Europe parliamentary delegation chief Dragoljub Micunovic has said that a report on Serbia that will be reviewed by delegates in the CoE's Parliamentary Assembly in Strasburg on Jan. 25, is "very favorable for Serbia" in terms of its content, but that what was surprising was that the report still referred to Serbia as being in the monitoring process.

"The report is very favorable contentwise, only we do not know why the authors did not recommend cancelling the monitoring status [for Serbia] and giving it a postmonitoring status", Micunovic told BETA.

Micunovic also stressed that the report showed that the Serbian authorities had undertaken the required reforms.

Serbian MPs do not intend to propose amendments to a draft resolution "on honoring the obligations and duties of Serbia" at the Jan. 25 session where they intend to pose the question of "evening out" the criteria for transferring the country from its present monitoring status to the postmonitoring status phase.