Serbian Parliament to debate Kosovo on Wednesday

The Serbian Parliament will hold a session devoted to Kosovo on Wednesday, Dec. 26, the office of the parliament speaker announced Monday.

At the session, the Belgrade negotiating team will submit its report on the negotiations process, while the parliament is to set guidelines for further actions regarding the Kosovo status developments.

The draft text of a parliamentary resolution was agreed upon late Monday night by the two main ruling parties, PM Vojislav Kostunica's DSS (Democratic Party of Serbia) and Serbian President Boris Tadic's DS (Democratic Party), casting away rumors of a crisis in the ruling coalition over Kosovo and EU integrations.

The Democratic Party of Serbia and New Serbia, both ruling coalition members, have demanded that the condition for signing the Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU, announced for late January and aiming at softening Serbia's stand on Kosovo, be the inclusion of a provision in the document according to which the EU recognizes Serbia's territorial integrity and sovereignty, but it is not yet clear whether this will be Serbia's official position.

What is certain, though, is that the main parties have agreed to include an article stipulating "Serbia's military neutrality pending a referendum on the issue", a move which officially limitates Serbia's NATO integration to the already signed Partnership for Peace Program.

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