CSOs and the Negotiating Team for Chapter 24 defined recommendations for the improvement of negotiations at their first meeting

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Sonja Stojanović Gajić, director of Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, coordinator of the working group for Chapter 24 – justice, freedom and security, reminded that, in December 2014, 52 civil society organizations asked for the Action Plan to be made available to the public. She commended the development in this area, stating that this session was a unique opportunity for CSOs to directly talk with the representatives of the working group for drafting the Action Plan. She stated this was the first opportunity to discuss the document in the process of drafting with the representatives of the civil society. On behalf of members of the working group, BCSP’s Director expressed the wish to conduct similar meetings in the future as well.  

“It is necessary to establish a mechanism for public reporting about the implementation of the Chapter 24 Action plan. Moreover, it should be clearly defined when there will be opportunities for further consultations with the CSOs, during the Action Plan implementation. Besides, CSOs demand organizing mandatory public debates for laws and strategies whose adoption is scheduled within this Action Plan. “Within the Chapter 24, it is particularly important to organize public debates for the laws on police, asylum, foreigners, directives on integration, and strategy against human trafficking”, pointed out the BCSP director at the session in the national assembly building, on the 6^th of February.

Chapters 23 and 24 are of great importance to the start of negotiations

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The Chief of the Negotiating Team, Tanja Miščević, pointed out that Serbia made a great step with this document because it encompassed all elements of envisioned directives, the European Commission’s demands, financial means and their sources, as well as indicators of directives’ influence on everyday life of citizens.  There is still much work in the procedural sense, she added. In the meantime, Serbia awaits comments from Brussels on the second version of the Action Plan, which will serve as the opening benchmark for Chapter 24. After finalizing the action plan for Chapter 24, as well as for Chapter 23 on justice that goes together, adopting negotiating positions is the next step.

 

“It would be really nice to open these two chapters in the first half of the year. We are not doing this just to harmonize with the EU, but to have a safer life. These chapters are opened among the first ones, closed last, and they are important because progress in negotiations is measured according to them, and it guarantees citizen’s safety as well” stated Miščević.

State secretary in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the president of the Negotiating Team for Chapter 24, Aleksandar Nikolić, said that the first draft of the Action Plan was not released because the group believed that the second version would be of sufficient quality. He added that all comments from Brussels will be considered, as well suggestions from syndicates and CSOs, and he expects this version to be final.

Action Plan Draft – good baseline for further work on opening negotiations on Chapter 24

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Nikolić stated that in this document, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the first time, in addition to strategic goals, covered the financial aspects of the Plan. Most of the funds will come from the state budget, but EU funds will be used as well, and Serbia used services of the Bureau for technical assistance and information exchange (TAIEX) whose mission visited Serbia. Dejan Raketić from the Ministry of Internal Affairs said that the making of the Action Plan began after screening in December 2013, lasted more than a year, and involved more than 100 people.

He brought up the question of impact indicators, namely the society changes as the result of envisioned steps and reforms, as especially complicated. He stated that it takes time to asses influence and it is often a question of insufficiently tangible matters the assessment of which often requires “50 page studies”.

Only the opening session of the Convention was open to the broader public. Afterwards, the discussion between the coordinators of particular areas and the representatives of CSOs dealing with those areas in a closed session followed. This chapter includes matters of asylum, migrations and external borders and Schengen area, visa policy, judicial cooperation in criminal and civil matters, police cooperation and fight against organized crime, fight against terrorism, cooperation in the area of drugs, customs cooperation and euro counterfeiting. {split}

Judicial and customs cooperation, cooperation in the area of drugs and euro counterfeiting

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The first working part of the session was devoted to presenting the drafting of Action Plan on the issues of judicial cooperation in criminal and civil matters, customs cooperation, cooperation in the area of drugs and euro counterfeiting. Nikola Naumovski, from the Ministry of Justice and the coordinator of the sub-group for judicial cooperation, stated that the Action Plan was produced in a close cooperation with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and that it completely follows recommendations put forward by the European Commission in their screening report for this area. The only question left unaddressed in the Action Plan was the question of cooperation with Kosovo, which will be settled on a political level.

Serbia is harmonized with European standards in areas of customs cooperation and cooperation in the area of euro forgery to a great extent. The only remaining issues are introducing new technologies and the ratification of the Geneva Convention. When it comes to cooperation in the area of drugs, opening the Office for Drugs was marked as a great improvement. The storage and disposal of confiscated substances remains the main unsettled question in this area, as pointed out by Ivan Brandić from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, coordinator for this area.

Representatives of Victimologist Society of Serbia, Autonomous Women’s Centre and BCSP brought forward their proposals and comments for this part of the Action plan.

The fight against organized crime and terrorism is one of the priorities

The second part of the session covered the fight against organized crime, which the European Commission marked as a priority for Serbia. Gordana Janićijević, the Deputy State Public Prosecutor and a coordinator for this area, said that eleven sub-groups were created, due to the extensiveness of the topic, one for each recommendation from the screening process. She added that a great number of workshops for employees were organized, including with Dutch experts through TAIEX support, due to the fact that the main problem during the production of the Action Plan for this area was a lack of human resources.

Zorana Gajić from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, coordinator for the police cooperation, pointed out that organizational and administrative changes are expected in order to establish more efficient information exchange with other member states of the EU.  More efficient cooperation with EUROPOL is expected, as well as raising capacities of human resources in order to implement the Swedish initiative and Prum decision. In regard to fight against terrorism, there are no major obstacles, and Action plan sets out the adoption of Strategy and Action plan for the fight against terrorism for 2015, as well as legal changes that would enable identification of European critical infrastructure (ECI) in order to adequately protect it.

The representatives of Astra, Centre for Public Policy Research, YUCOM, and BCSP were included in these discussions.

Migrations, asylum, visa policy, border control, and Schengen

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Jelena Vasiljević from MoI was assigned as the coordinator for three working sub-groups, due to interconnectedness of areas of migration, asylum, external border control and Schengen. Vasiljević pointed out that within these policies there is a great number of actors that carry out the Action Plan activities, as well as that the measures predicted for these areas are most expensive for implementation. In the upcoming period Vasiljević announced adoption of four new laws and two strategies in this area, because Serbia is far from being harmonized with the European standards in these areas.

In the area of visa policy no big obstacles are expected. The main requirements include introducing new visa regime to third countries, in particular the common visa policy of the European Union, as well as the demand to reduce the issuing of visas at border crossing point.

Numerous representatives of CSOs that deal with aforementioned policies showed readiness to contribute to the improvement of Action Plan in this area, giving comments on activities and directing attention to problems with accommodation capacities, human resources in shelters, as well as to non-existence of the national migration policy. Representatives from Belgrade Center for Human Rights, Group 484, Praxis organization, Autonomous women’s center, Center for European Policies and BCSP made their remarks in their area.