Vucic: All agreements signed; I congratulate our people in Kosovo and Metohija

Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić announced tonight that four agreements have been signed between Belgrade and Pristina in Brussels, on the Community of Serbian Municipalities, energy, telecommunications and the bridge in Kosovska Mitrovica, and assessed them as good and warranting safety and endurance of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija.

"The Community of Serbian Municipalities is being established tonight. The CSM will have broad powers, a president and a vice president, an assembly, a council, a coat of arms, a flag, etc. It will be able to receive funding from Serbia, and it is stated unambiguously that Serbia will have this right," Vučić underlined in his statement to the RTS.

Vučić said that the Serbian delegation did an excellent job and that all agreements will be made available to the public.

He said that the Serbian delegation had spent the whole day talking to the EU facilitators and had only seen the Kosovo Albanian delegation at the end of the day.

"As to Telekom, some people have forgotten to mention that, when making a phone call to Central Serbia, Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija will continue to dial only the city code, namely 011, 018 or 034, and the other way round, only dial 028 when phoning Kosovska Mitrovica."

Vučić said this was the first time since 1999 that we have managed to legalise our position, so the world will recognise a Serbian telecommunications company. It will be the first time we have a supplier and a trader in electric power.

"It will be the subsidiaries of the Electric Power Industry of Serbia", Vučić said.

No agreement has been made on the corporate distribution system, Vučić said, adding that Priština wrote that in their view those assets belong to Kosovo, and right under that "we added that it was the property of the Republic of Serbia in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia".

Therefore I really think that we defended all our interests very successfully.

As to the bridge on the Ibar River, our people need not worry.

They wanted to open Kralja Petra Street for traffic, and this street will be reconstructed into a pedestrian area in line with the decisions signed today, Vučić specified.

"They wanted to have vehicles and trucks in Kralja Petra Street, and that will not be possible. The street will become a pedestrian zone which we will construct," Vučić said.

These things are usually very hard given that we operate within the frameworks outlined in 1999 or in 2008, which were a disaster for us, but I am not the bearer of bad news.

Vučić specified that the discussions on energy to be held in the future would be difficult, adding that no agreement has been reached on the distribution system operator, which is acknowledged by the agreement.

"As far as Serbia is concerned, we'll implement everything and I think that our people have reasons to be pleased," the Prime Minister said and stressed that the CSM is established as of tonight.

This signals another great thing for the entire country, and that it is the opening of chapters in the EU negotiations, since there is nothing standing in the way any longer.

"Serbia's European path is open and, given the framework within which we operated, I think we did better and achieved more than we expected," he said.

Asked about the relevance of the upcoming conference in Vienna to the closure of agreements, Vučić said that he had made a promise earlier not to sign that the assets in electric power industry belong to Kosovo no matter what happens.

"I will not and did not sign that," Vučić said, adding that the next round of talks in Brussels has not been scheduled.

I am not dissatisfied with our achievements and I look forward to visiting our people in Kosovo and Metohija in September, whether before or after my visit to the USA, but I intend to spend two days there in order to visit all 10 participating municipalities of the CSM - and congratulate our people on the establishment of the CSM in Kosovo and Metohija."

Vučić assessed the four agreements made in Brussels as good for Serbia and the Serbian people and that we achieved everything that the Serbian delegation had insisted upon.

He told the press that he is primarily satisfied with the fact that the Community of Serbian Municipalities is established, and stressed that the agreement mentions the Law on Civil Servants (which Priština opposed).

"We made good agreements for our people. We managed to achieve what we insisted on by our persistence. There will certainly be a lot of hardship in our negotiations concerning the CSM Statute, but today's document initialling lays the foundation and paves the way for the creation of the CSM, with its own President and Vice President, Assembly and Council, coat of arms and flag", Vučić told the press in Brussels.

The Prime Minister reiterated that the initialling of the four agreements today paves the way for the opening of chapters and faster accession of Serbia to the EU.

"We are satisfied, we have initialled all four agreements. I think that, given the frameworks, we have good news for our people in Kosovo and Metohija and good news for all citizens of Serbia. I congratulate our people in Kosovo and Metohija," Vučić said.