the streets of our rights are not i'm pretty special. with our changing. ready. to get. started. on the top. so beer is pushing ahead with moves to join the european union but brussels is so far unimpressed with its reforms my guest this week visiting violin is the serbian prime minister and not burn that bitch why so little progress on so many key issues . prime minister anna boden of which welcome to contacts on thank you very much thank

you for inviting one of the conditions for serbia joining the e.u. is that you sign a legally binding agreement on peaceful relations with kosovo which declared its independence in two thousand and eight you've never recognize that these talks come and go sometimes their own sometimes they're off why should the e.u. bother with all this feuding and bilateral disputes that you have with cost of oil have too much trouble for the launch. i think as much as our interest is to join the e.u. i think the enlargement to cover balkans is also in the news interest i think first and foremost the european union is a peace project and it's a successful one because we have for the first time in history a long term peace in europe would you say that because they know you have made it clear haven't they they cannot and will not import bilateral disputes junko deal because said it last year that's pretty clear isn't it because it's clear they're not going to point to a dispute with kosovo it is absolutely clear if you don't settle it there you're not going to get you know that it's normal to me i think that's just natural thing

to do i would ask that if i were the e.u. as well so you're not going to settle this any time soon you've admitted that yourself so there's not really no perspective for you joining in the foreseeable future i would one hundred percent disagree with you on that point because firstly the the soonest possible date for us to join the e.u. is twenty twenty five so by twenty twenty five i think there is a possibility that we actually signed a long term normalization agreement with british really it doesn't look like it at the moment but i'm not saying that this will happen i'm saying that serbia is committed to it it doesn't depend on serbia alone it depends also on priest or not as well as on other allies of ours so i think we're going into that in the direction of the e.u. for me what's important is that we actually implement all the reforms so that as

a society politically economically we become fit for the e.u. . yeah but you say that and i want to come on to those reforms so long a little bit because the e.u. is far from happy with the state of your reforms but but last week the window i would also disagree with the phrase all girls will go through to sell will go directly into india large one strategy the e.u. clearly identified serbia and montenegro as frontrunners. that is far from being this. disappointed very hard on for us but the issue is getting fed up with you and at the sofia summit in may and later in london there was a pretty lukewarm attitude to all six balkan countries looking to join the e.u. no mention of any timetable for accession and some pretty clear opposition from the french president emmanuel markram wasn't that clear opposition look lonely let me just say i do not think that you have the right to say that you use fed up with us

i don't think it's diplomatic but i don't think you can say that on behalf of the e.u. if you look at what you know what he said if what he. was fed up with us then we would not have any new chapter so point and we do have new chapters being constantly opened and that the trend is that we are going towards the e.u. well that's not according to the president micro who said what we've seen over the past fifteen years is a path that has weakened europe every time we think of enlarging it and i don't think we do a service to the candidate countries or ourselves by having a mechanism that in a way no longer has rules and keeps moving towards more enlargement and the apple is hardly welcoming you with both of those and i agree with president mccrone one hundred percent i do not think that enlargement in the past was particularly

successful i think the likely to be with you can i think that will likely do it with you and i think that the consequence of that. kind of accession to the e.u. is that the country whose success in the e.u. is weaker because its economy cannot compete its agriculture cannot compete they suffer from a huge brain drain and the e.u. gets weaker so why don't you put your membership on hold stop taking the funds to sort out the bilateral problems with kosovo you know the other refer to them in our membership in four hundred how many fund how much money do you get from your you know you are getting hundreds of millions you are getting much less than that we are getting pretty accession funds and the pre accession funds are exactly smaller than for the funds that the e.u. member states are getting well you've given the impression that you are in it just for the money on two events and that is completely that is completely not right you really have the president your president then you think you can silence just if i

can just say or you can have your interview with yourself if i can just say something firstly we've always said to our citizens that we cannot and will not look at towards the e.u. as a pot of money that the that the better quality of life the jobs better salaries need to come from ourselves and the strength of our economy that we want to be part of the e.u. because use of peace project and we have shared values with the e.u. so if that's true why did president hu toots three years ago when he was prime minister make it clear when he told a meeting in tehran we are fed up with seminars we need some money from the e.u. funds then you see the smiles on our faces that would be a clear indication that he was simply after the money would say that you took out the statement if it's correct and i do not remember that it is

a directive of the revolution on multiple news lately args of the context if anything president forty as the prime minister. repeated lee said he you is not a pot of money for us we need to take of take care of our own economy our jobs our infrastructure the e.u. is a different goal for serbia now whether we're going to be ready by twenty twenty five to join the e.u. is another question and i think if you ask me if the e.u. said you can join to morrow and say no because we are not ready which would which would mean that again we get in a large amount in which serbia would be worse off and europe would be worse so everybody can i am hospitable to i am more interested in the reforms themselves when it comes when it comes to course of our prime minister you keep raising the bar going to you now say that any final deal will have to be comprehensive it will

have to include among other things human rights minority rights economic cooperation and learning each other's language and cultural heritage you settle this in a region through to the house that raising the bar is going to take a long time twenty years at least why should the e.u. wait around for a while who says that you will wait around for that if it takes twenty years obviously we want to join the e.u. who says that the e.u. will wait around who's asking the e.u. to wait you are you continuing with your membership application and you but of course so you wanted to wait around but of course because we want to become members of the e.u. but i am more interested in the reforms once we implemented the reforms the e.u. will come as a natural called consequence of these reforms if they want to wait for and that's fine if they don't want to wait around that's all that is fine to assume that that will not change you know paul i don't mind whether they wait around or that they will not change. serbian policies

a little bit we are what we are doing in terms of the reforms we are doing first and foremost because of our own citizens and our businesses for the quality of life of citizens in serbia ok well let's talk about let me just tell the national real utility to understand what the e.u. is for us firstly the reforms in our e.u. accession parth mean that we have strong stable economy that we have we implemented structural reforms that will lead to strong stable economy what about margaret rights of press freedom things lab at mit what about the first real if you let me finish i'll come to that the second pillar is efficient transparent public and public administration the third pillar is the rule of law more stronger more independent but also more efficient and more accountable judiciary talk about press freedom one of the most glaring failures of your government has been your refusal to protect freedom of speech in february the council of europe's human rights

commission has said the atmosphere in which journalists work in serbia appears to have deteriorated quite seriously especially with the smear campaigns against journalists with somebody or titian's calling them traitors foreign agents and mercenaries you have denied that any of this is the case but europe isn't buying your denials is it. well firstly i see the roots of freedom of media in serbia i see no smear campaigns again i just i see criticism of the president of myself of the government every single day in the media as it should be what about the. democratic society promise to let me give you an example alexander martine of a senior official of your ruling progressive party he labeled the head of the independent journalists association a voyage void in a and enemy of serbia because he made critical comments about the authorities is that acceptable is an enemy of serbia i'm not saying that it's

acceptable for me also you doesn't happen well for one thing i'm saying that there is a media freedom and in serbia i'm saying that the that there is me and there certainly as a result in which journalist work in serbia appears to have deteriorated quite honestly it was sort of these absolutely do not agree with that in serbia i think he makes it up listen in serbia. about ten years ago or a little bit over the over the when we actually had a democratically the macross tickle you oriented political party in power the members of the ruling coalition kicked physically kicked journalists. the the so you think it's untrue moment now that they've just been threatened now they're just certain the anti corruption console so that media is completely politically influenced i think we have a lot to deal with in serbia and we are dealing with it and i think the situation

is improving it by no means by no means worse than in last night's event last month an official from the security information agency the marco the rich so the greatest threat to serbia of a foreign agents working in media nongovernmental agencies and opposition parties it's an easy smear isn't it talk about foreign agents in the media when you have no evidence for that what it is absolutely ridiculous to quote one public servant at the conference where the president of serbia talked about threats and i'd talked about threats and you have the president and the prime minister talking about about threats which is migration terrorism cyber security and costs when the thought here and no one is quoting that the actual official policy of serbia has never i haven't said so you can hear me yes or no not even this is all taken out of context in his

latest i think that you had two of the highest official of of serbia saying what the threats are and everyone disregarding this just so that someone can take words of one single public servant prime minister in family with a case in its latest report in april the european commission said the fact that no progress had been made to safeguard freedom of expression was a matter of increasing concern that was in april serbian or thora he said the commission need to provide active support to independent bodies human rights defenders and independent journalists and promptly react to and publicly condemn the threats. against them so why don't you do what the commission asked you to of of done exactly the thing that the commission asked me to do and we're very sorry you have and thank you so much over the let's see let's see the upcoming report thank you for that question actually in fact as the prime minister i searched on

with all the media representatives talk to them about how what we can do to come up with a credible media strategy they've asked me for me personally to run this the working group are actually in my cabinet in my team and not under the minister of culture and information that we have the working group. to work on the media strategy this is exactly what we're doing right now with the support of the european commission that is the european delegation in serbia. the corner of the stiff tongue the oil sea and the region embassy in serbia ok and there's and also the medium of carrying all through to europe the sense they are all having all through to you or you will see in the next really in the upcoming early port and and all the other seventy three are from asia where we see improvements there and well also of course really because we have in the meantime i was not going well by

the resident if i can just not going well live is if you know it's going really well really show i'll tell you also the media representatives ours that we have it called the nation body also under my cabinet as the prime minister we too will in parallel with media strategy work on resolving odd hockey issues that media have in serbia we've agreed to that as well we are doing that they meet once a month and they're already resolving issues if you want to you know i was my government is the first government to actually implement the open data policy we have we have we are doing that together and like i mentioned earlier we have adopted the parliament has adopted law the law in the government which makes opening data in serbia i understand that earlier this year because this is a lot of europe seems to me that you do understand i understand what you're saying but the disagrees with it and so does the council of europe and the human rights

commission who complained in his report earlier this year that things with regard to access to information are not going well the government is not implementing the recommendations of the commissioner for information of public importance and the parliament is not discussing his reports you want to continue down this road because they're not buying your denials of this. i'm not saying that these are denials the. so much work to be done and i'm saying the us said i said yesterday. at the conference of konrad adenauer stiff them i think if we look at our you integration in three key pillars economy public administration rule of law by far the most was done in the economy i would say in terms of structural reforms eighty five percent of the job has been done which is shown in the numbers that serbia has right now our g.d.p. growth in this year was four point five percent our our employment coughed our. we are the world leaders in the eye of traction in terms of public administration

reform public pub probably fifty percent of the job he has done still a long way to go in terms of the rule of law thirty percent has been done so we have a long long way to go you have a long way to go on the issue of war crimes as well but the e.u. is still not satisfied with you perform well in you you are certainly not one hundred percent satisfied go are far less than one hundred par with and i would say that serbia by far is the best case example in the region of how to deal with the war crimes really value in january twenty sixth in the may twenty seventh in serbia had no formally appointed war crimes prosecutor and that account for seventeen months and that's about was that was a way of showing your willingness to deal with this and that the no interest that you can't you can absolutely disregard everything that serbia has been doing. with respect to the war crimes since two thousand since the last eight hundred

years ok and the last of the hundred are live in florida most of all other countries enduring according to the great action plan for a trip to twenty three of the e.u. application five additional deputy prosecutor should have been appointed by the end of the twenty seventeen why weren't the if you're doing everything you need to do. well to be honest i don't know the answer to that question but we've appointed them now and i have to say that you know you have you know priorities first and serbia literally four years ago was three months away from bank bankruptcy which goes to say that we really had to focus all of our effort all of our strength on very difficult very unpopular economic reforms you cannot do everything at the same time so far there been no indictments against senior military or police officials for war crimes there are currently fifteen cases ongoing the majority involve low ranking military or police defendants what's the deal of the higher ups the senior

officers get away with the lower ones take the prosecutions is that it i dunno i do not agree with you and again i think that serbia has done by far the most still you know still there is a job to be done but i think that serbia and i am absolutely proud with how serbia has handled our issues from the past are you are you proud of the trend in serbia that the points to to see former war criminals as heroes or role models do you subscribe to the no i do not i do not i think that you know we see in other countries in the region the war criminals actually war or indicted war criminal sexually have official that all says advisors to the president's or in the government you know we have we see some being even the prime ministers but in serbia you do not have those kind of things you have the millers out of it for

instance convicted for crimes against ethnic albanians because of our cause if you're going to lecture at the serbian military academy not he was convicted he served his sentence he was released his in serbia now he was one time lacked just let. at the military academy or on the farm nor if i'm not mistaken on what was the call but. during the middle nato bombing campaign over serbia so he's not appointed the lecturer at the military i think our last scene of each convicted of similar acts lay to be appointed to his own position as a member of the executive council of the serbian socialist party happy with or that is serbian socialist party has nothing to do with the government is nothing to do with your fishel functions your hundreds of little serbia really have been the time into public life and these people have these what what do you want to do

with these people if they were convicted serve their sentence to you and you were released do you want us to lock them up in serbia so they can not show their faces i'm going to sit in parliament like voiceless for instance what voiceless fashion i remember says he's proud of all the war crimes and crimes against humanity that were i will remind i will remind you while talking about the rule of law the voice of session handed himself to the hague tribunal voluntarily had thirteen years thirteen years trial is that what you call rule of law and was then acquitted came back to serbia and then the incredible was overturned this year it was overturned it was overturned but thirteen years is all your sentence by and that's free because of time so of course of course this still whole all him at least three years of his

life. their money or step on or is this russell all the money a stepparent of it from the center for humanitarian law in belgrade serbia has not moved an inch from the time when the wars were being fought in the one nine hundred ninety s. as one after another war criminals are released and give a serve given a ceremonial reception by the government on their return they've been ushered back into public institutions he said i'm just telling you that's not true so he can hear what you know that he doesn't know what he's talking about i disagree with him so and to say that serbia hasn't done anything is unbelievable i didn't say i haven't done anything i said in the rough according to the e.u. as i'm done enough ok perhaps we can do more and and we will to ensure the rule of law in serbia and to end in to deal with the past and turn towards the

future serbia will do its part but i would actually caution everyone not to really look at serbia alone but to also look at what other countries in the region are doing does doing what's expected of it for you include acknowledging that the massacre at srebrenica in one thousand nine hundred ninety five was genocide you were asked in may last year by the council of ministers a council of europe to recognize srebrenica as genocide you've never done that are you prepared to do that no i do not think that the terrible crime massacre in stride but it was a genocide you must know that unless you take this that the chances of you joining your opinion are very slim i know i don't know the. we because it was a huge is a crime it was a war crime i am not happy because of it it wasn't done in the name of serbian

people and serbian cannot assert serbs cannot be called actively. be blamed for what happened there two courts the international criminal tribunal for tribunal for the former yugoslavia an international court of justice both ruled that it was genocide. and you won't accept it i do not think it was a translight you're rewriting history and you trying to rewrite history i do not think it was a genocide i think it was but let me just say it seems like you know you know i think it was it was a terrible terrible crime but genocide is basically when you are genocide is when you are you know killing the entire population the women children and this was not the case in two thousand and four the presiding judge of the criminal tribunal for the former yugoslavia said by seeking to

eliminate part of the bosnian muslims the bosnian serb forces committed genocide they targeted for extinction the forty thousand bosnian muslims living in srebrenica a group which was emblematic of the bosnian muslims in general that's why it was labeled genocide. and if you can if you if you can't accept it why should my septic was a terrible crime serbia delivered the person who was charged with that more crime we've delivered that person who was on trial he's in jail but you won't accept the step which the council of europe asks you to accept that it was a genocide yeah i'm telling you it was about your red line is it i'm telling you you're never going to do it i told you my answer. i miss them i love from the beach thank you very much you know.

that the. thanks bud. first. grand moment arrived. here in atlanta on the journey. into the ring you to return. to go if they make a commitment. they follow up. they conspire.

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people come together and unite for a cool. head i do the news i often confront a dictator situations for conflict between does the most damage i see despond my job to confront was he does on policies and development to put the spotlight on the issues that matter most hunger food security oppression nationalization. or not has been achieved so much more needs to be done and i think people have to be at the top of solutions my name is on the top she's on to dazzle. close.

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