Serbian Parliamentarians Clash in Tense Debate on Kosovo

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic addresses the members of the Parliament during a special session in Belgrade, Serbia. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANDREJ CUKIC

Members of the Serbian parliament, from both the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, SNS, and opposition, came into physical conflict during a debate about the former province of Kosovo and a European proposal to resolve Serbia-Kosovo relations.

MPs confronted each other during President Aleksandar Vucic’s response to an MP’s speech. Some opposition MPs approached Vucic, claiming their procedural rights were being violated, after which ruling party MPs approached the opposition, with both sides yelling at each other as Vucic was trying to speak.

During Vucic’s speech, some opposition MPs were holding up banners reading: “No to capitulation“, “Treason”, and “Vucic, you betrayed Kosovo“, referring to his meetings about the so-called Franco German proposal for future relations with Kosovo.

Another read: “You will be held responsible“, with a photo of Oliver Ivanovic, a murdered Kosovo Serb politician who opposed the Belgrade-backed Kosovo Serb party Srpska lista.

Officially, the only item on the agenda was a report on the negotiations process “with the provisional institutions of self-government in Pristina“, as Serbia refers to the government of Kosovo, which it does not recognise.

The atmosphere then worsened during the discussion about the so-called Franco-German plan.

The opposition accused Vucic of negotiating about a plan that has not been made public, and attcked him for negotiating at all.

Serbian MPs confronting each other in the Assembly hall. Screenshot: Youtube/ParlamentSrbija

Radomir Lazovic, president of the Green-left club, urged Vucic to make the Franco-German, or European, proposal public

“Where is it? Why did you hide it? Why did none of these people in this Hall, 250 deputies, have the opportunity to have an insight into it?” Lazovic asked. In response to Lazovic, Vucic said he “does not have right to publish it”.

During his speech, Vucic claimed that “90 per cent of what was made public“ about the plan was true. He read out parts of the plan, saying the preamble is fine for Serbia but that main danger was in point 4.

“In point 4, it says, in the second paragraph, ’Serbia will not oppose the membership of Kosovo in any international organization’“, Vucic said.

In statements in 2022, Vucic claimed that, in essence, the proposal implied Serbia’s acquiescence to Kosovo’s membership of the United Nations.

Bosko Obradovic, leader of the right-wing Dveri party, called the proposal an “ultimatum“.

“The conclusion of the session of the National Assembly on the subject of Kosovo and Metohija should be … that the National Assembly, without delay, rejects in its entirety the Franco-German proposal that the President has already accepted to apply without authorization, against our will,“ Obradovic said.

Members of the Serbian Parliament hold up a banner reading: ‘Vucic, you betrayed Kosovo’ during a session in Belgrade. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANDREJ CUKIC

The session was scheduled after Vucic on January 20 met representatives of the EU and US who, he claims, told him that if Serbia does not accept the proposal, its European Union integration process will be halted and investments blocked.

The EU’s special representative for Serbia-Kosovo dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, told media in Belgrade after the meeting that he and his EU and US colleagues felt “encouraged” by the meeting.

While the Franco German proposal has never been made public, in November 2022, Belgrade and Brussels-based media published what they reported was a leaked copy.

It allegedly requires both sides to “develop normal, good neighbourly relations with each other based on equal rights”; to “reaffirm the inviolability now and in the future of the frontier/boundary existing between them and undertake fully to respect each other’s territorial integrity”; also to exchange “permanent missions” and commit to “mutual respect of each party’s jurisdiction”.

Experts told BIRN in November that the leaked draft, as reported, seemed based on the 1972 Basic Treaty by which East and West Germany de facto recognised each other, but without the word “recognition” actually appearing in the text.

Keen to stabilise the region against the ripple-effects of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the EU appears to have coalesced around the Franco-German proposal, which the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has stressed is in fact a “European” proposal.

“The so-called ‘Franco-German proposal’ is in fact Franco-German support for the proposal presented by me and [EU envoy] Miroslav Lajcak,” he said.