site.btaCommissioner Fule: No Talks about EU Membership without Actual Guarantee for Bulgarians' Rights in Serbia

Commissioner Fule: No Talks about EU Membership  without Actual Guarantee for Bulgarians' Rights in Serbia

Sofia/Brussels, October 29 (BTA) - There can be no talks about
Serbia's EU membership without actual guarantee for the rights
of Bulgarians in the country, European Commissioner for
Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Fule said
in reply to an inquiry by Angel Dzhambazki MEP of VMRO about the
problems of the Bulgarian minority in Southeastern Serbia, the
VMRO press centre said Wednesday.

Dzhambazki asked whether the association negotiations with
Serbia will continue while there are a large number of
infringements on the rights of minorities in the country. He
listed part of the serious obstacles put by the Serbian
authorities to the exercising of rights of the Bulgarian
minority in Southeastern Serbia, including the pressure by the
local authorities on Bulgarian teachers at the Georgi Dimitrov
Secondary School in Bosilegrad, where the lack of Bulgarian
language textbooks infringes on the Bulgarians' right to study
in their mother tongue, as well as the prosecution of Bulgarian
cultural figures, such as Ivan Nikolov from Bosilegrad.

In his reply, Commissioner Fule said that the observation of the
fundamental rights and the protection of minorities are basic
requirements that Serbia has to meet within the association
negotiations with the EU. According to the European Commission,
attention should be paid to the consistent implementation of
legislation in the whole country, particularly in the sphere of
education, language use and access to media and religious
services in the minorities' languages, every time when the
minorities express a wish for this.

Dzhambazki commented that the Commission's reply is diplomatic
but also clear enough: there can be no talks about Serbia's EU
membership without actual actions for guaranteeing the rights of
the Bulgarian minority and its direct participation in Serbia's
public life. In his words, this is a fundamental question and
it is a corner stone in the relations of Belgrade with the EU
Member States. Additionally, the association process is frozen
for now, which in the European Commission's bureaucratic
language means that much more rigorous rules will be applied to
the new candidate countries. In this sense, Serbia will not be
allowed to enter the EU on the basis of a compromise and this
should become clear to all circles in Belgrade, Dzhambazki said.