It is a great honour for me to greet the joint committee on behalf on our delegation. Our talks with the Taoiseach and Members of the Irish Parliament confirm this country's understanding of our goals and objectives towards integration with the European Union. The priority for Serbia and Montenegro, with all other countries in the western Balkans region, is to join the Union and we have made some important steps in recent months to accelerate this process. The obligations which have troubled and prevented us from doing so are directly linked to the past. However, we are on the way to eliminating them, particularly in respect of Ratko Mladic. We will be able to complete these obligations in the coming months and begin the negotiating process for the stabilisation and association agreement which will begin in October and further accelerate the process of European integration.
By the end of the year we expect to be received as a member of Partnership for Peace which will mark 2005 as the year of European successes for Serbia and Montenegro. It is important for us to achieve these successes this year, not only for the reasons I have outlined but also because of the situation in Kosovo-Metohija which, as the joint committee will know, has been ongoing for a number of years. There was another outburst of violence and ethnic cleansing last March which made the involved parties and partners aware of their responsibilities. I hope negotiations on the future status of Kosovo-Metohija will begin next October. When we speak about issues related to Kosovo-Metohija, we are very much in favour of meaningful dialogue, compromise and multi-ethnicity, without extreme approaches being adopted and excluding Albania and Prstina from the process. The assistance of the international community will encourage the process and help find a long-term stable solution based on democracy because only the democratic solution guarantees stability and longevity.
I do not want to try to predict what the future status of Kosovo-Metohija will be. However, its future status cannot be sought in the past or the existing state of affairs. We should search for a specific solution which would be satisfactory to everybody, meaning that nobody would win or lose everything. It would be a win-win solution. However, it is not possible to predict what will happen.
As the joint committee is probably aware, the right of every member state to hold a referendum has been stipulated by the constitutional charter. Montenegro will certainly try to exercise this right at the beginning of 2006. Discussions are ongoing on the standards which should be applied when dealing with the issue. The law in Montenegro is highly harmonised with European standards in law. However, I must stress that there is no single harmonised practice in the European Union. The existing legislation in Montenegro was recently taken into consideration and we will soon have an opinion on the matter.
Apart from the legal context, the political aspect is important. In Montenegro, it is necessary to have a consensus among all major political forces and an ability to accept the final result of the referendum. This is important because a referendum should not be a means per se but it should rather introduce Montenegro or Serbia, if the latter decides to go in that direction, to a more democratic and European society. On behalf of the State Union, Montenegro and all the officials in Serbia, I must state that everyone will do everything in their power to organise a referendum, applying the highest possible European standards and trying to avoid jeopardising the stability of Montenegro, the region and the entire western Balkans.
The issues of Kosovo-Metohija and the referendum in Montenegro are frequently linked. Some people tend to say that the referendum could prejudge the future solution for the matter of Kosovo-Metohija. For this reason, we should tread carefully when contemplating the referendum. As the members know, however, Kosovo-Metohija was an open issue long before the establishment of the State Union and it existed in a much less democratic period, for example, during Tito's rule. The problem of Serbia and Montenegro was resolved by establishing the State Union in a democratic way, which should not be viewed in either a strictly positive or negative manner. It can be not be treated as an issue of life and death.
So the essence of things is not to stop the processes of integration with the European Union, whatever the solution may be. I take this opportunity to call anew for the committee's support in our attempts to accelerate the process of joining the European Union in order to reach a more democratic and stable position in this region.
There are definitely ideas to the effect that we should solve this issue through agreement and there are ideas coming from Montenegro that perhaps the State Union should be transformed into a union of independent states, which would allow a constructive approach towards this issue. Establishing the State Union meant that a victory was achieved over a past that incorporated extremist ways of thinking. This was achieved in a spirit of democratic thinking. Agreement is something we should try to achieve because it is the basis for prosperity. If there is no agreement, it would just bring us back to the past.
In any event, the wish of most of the citizens of Serbia and Montenegro to join the European Union will guarantee democracy, democratic processes and stability in seeking solutions in respect of these issues. In conclusion, I am optimistic in this respect. It is encouraging for us that at the summit of the Heads of State of the European Union, the goals and objectives of the Thessaloniki declarations regarding the enlargement of the European Union — which is a priority issue for us — were reaffirmed.