Yugoslav Daily Survey, 97-05-09

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From: Yugoslavia <http://www.yugoslavia.com>

Yugoslav Daily Survey

CONTENTS

[01] YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT RECEIVES YUGOSLAV VETERANS

[02] ALBANIAN LEADER IN KOSOVO DELAYS ELECTION

[03] JOINT YUGOSLAV-MACEDONIAN COMMISSION HOLDS SESSION

[04] YUGOSLAVIA CAN EXPORT FREELY TO EU MARKET

[05] EU TRADE PREFERENCES TO TAKE EFFECT IN FEW DAYS

[06] YUGOSLAVIA MARKS WORLD WAR TWO VICTORY

[01] YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT RECEIVES YUGOSLAV VETERANS

Tanjug, 1997-05-08

Yugoslav President Zoran Lilic has received a Yugoslav veterans' delegation on the occasion of May 9 V-Day.

Lilic said Serbians and Montenegrins were often forced throughout history to wage liberation wars.

Many generations of fighters and patriots died for the freedom and independence of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, said Lilic.

'A nation that forgets its past and does not cherish its history cannot count on its future. The duty of generations today is to respect those who had died for their country, and give them a special place in their national history,' said Lilic.

'Yugoslavia contributed immensely to the allies' victory in World War Two, and suffered huge losses. This is recorded in all the histories of the world and whatever attempts are made to alter this, the truth will always remain. Generations owe the veterans 50 years of peace, economic and cultural development,' said Lilic.

'Today we must work hard toward economic reform and improve the standard of living, by advocating political stability in the country and its surroundings,' said Lilic and congratulated the veterans, wishing them good health and long life.

[02] ALBANIAN LEADER IN KOSOVO DELAYS ELECTION

Tanjug, 1997-05-08

An ethnic Albanian leader in Serbia's Kosovo-Metohija province was quoted on Thursday as saying he was postponing an election for a local parallel parliament for Dec. 24.

The Reuters news agency said that Ibrahim Rugova had taken the decision, faxed to Reuters, under direct pressure from the United States.

Reuters quoted one-time U.S. envoy to former Yugoslavia John Kornblum as saying he had advised Rugova during their recent meeting to abandon the idea of an independent Kosovo and seek a solution to the province's problems within the Yugoslav Republic of Serbia.

[03] JOINT YUGOSLAV-MACEDONIAN COMMISSION HOLDS SESSION

Tanjug, 1997-05-08

Yugoslav and Macedonian delegations who took part in the third session of a joint diplomatic-expert commission for determining and delineating the common border in Belgrade on May 6-8 agreed that conditions had been created for speeding up talks on proposals for the Yugoslav-Macedonian border, the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

The commission focused on exchanging views about and reaching agreement on the method for reviewing the proposals for determining and delineating the common border, which Yugoslavia and Macedonia had exchanged.

It was said that each side had prepared its proposals observing general principles, rules and criteria for the delineation between states and that the joint commission will continue to be guided by them.

Bearing in mind both sides' proposals, the Yugoslav and Macedonian delegations agreed on a certain part of the border line between the two states.

It was agreed that the reviewing of the Yugoslav and Macedonian proposals, which had started with success at this session, should resume at the next session in Skopje in the second half of May.

[04] YUGOSLAVIA CAN EXPORT FREELY TO EU MARKET

Tanjug, 1997-05-08

Yugoslav Foreign Trade Minister Borislav Vukovic told Tanjug Thursday that after the announcing of the latest EU trade measures in the EU Gazette, Yugoslav exports to the EU market will be exempted of duties and not limited by quotas.

Minister Vukovic explained that the EU autonomous measures meant that the EU had unilaterally reinstated the trade facilities that were in force in the former European Community for imports from Serbia and Montenegro, on the basis of the Agreement on Cooperation EEC - SFRY from 1980, as well as the Protocol on the Trade Regime, concluded in 1987.

Exceptions form the rule of full free access to the EU market include, Vukovic said, domestic agricultural products and hundreds of food products and other industrial products which, with certain limitations, can now be marketed more easily on the EU market for the first time after 1991.

Giving details about these groups of products, Minister Vukovic said that the EU measures concerned domestic beef meat and live calves (baby beef) for which the EU has fixed an import contingent for Yugoslavia this year of 9.975 tons. The concession on those imports are 20 percent of the total EU import duty. Certificates of origin are necessary, issued by our competent body, as well as the previous registration of slaughter houses in Yugoslavia to be carried out by a competent body, a EU Commission, Vukovic said.

Minister Vukovic said that for agricultural products in 17 customs groups, duties have been lifted on imports from the EU, for example horses for slaughter, mushrooms, peas, beans and others. Cucumbers and sauerkraut will have so-called 'referential quantities' at 3,000 tons, for cucumbers, and 100 tons for sauerkraut.

For some products, as fresh raspberries, concessions have been approved for a certain period of year. A 'ceiling' of 3,000 tons has been fixed for fresh sour cherries and 19.800 tons for preserved sour cherries.

Duty-free import contingents have been fixed for garlic (300 tons), paprika (1,200 tons), peas (1,300 tons), white cherries (2,600 tons), wine (545,000 hectolitres), plum brandy (5,420 hectolitres) and tobacco Prilep (1,500 tons).

Minister Vukovic said and for 18 customs groups of processed agricultural products duties will be lifted or reduced.

As for 'sensitive' industrial products, their imports from Yugoslavia will be limited by duty free 'ceilings', Vukovic said, and pointed out that the ceilings are expressed in tons.

Those limits are increased annually by five percent, but they are now, at the start, lower that former 'ceilings' determined for the SFRY.

'Sensitive products' include a total of 26 customs groups of products from urea to furniture, also oil products, four groups of ferrous-alloys and zink, and seven customs groups of ferrous metal products, Vukovic said.

For textile products and textile finishing deals, for which limits have been in place for several decades, there are special quantity limits on exports to the EU. Liberalization will be pursued on the basis of annual quantities yet to be fixed, the Minister said.

Vukovic recalled that the EU adopted mid-1996 a special regulation limiting direct imports from the FRY for 12 categories of textile and ready-to-wear products, and for six categories of finishing deal products.

Minister Vukovic pointed out especially that for using EU trade facilities, rules have to be observed about the origin of the product, proving their authenticity. All quantity 'ceilings' and contingents are applied on all countries users, and these are besides the FRY, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, FYROM and Slovenia for wine imports for this year.

Preferentials are actually used until the 'ceiling' is reached fixed by a EU Ministerial Council decision for which apply exporters from all these countries.

The only exception is beef meat for which a quota has been exclusively granted to Yugoslavia, Yugoslav Foreign Minister Borislav Vukovic said.

[05] EU TRADE PREFERENCES TO TAKE EFFECT IN FEW DAYS

Tanjug, 1997-05-08

The EU Council of Ministers decree on granting trade preferences to Yugoslavia will take effect a few days after being published in the E.U. Official Gazette and will not be implemented retroactively, Yugoslav Foreign Ministry Secretary Dusko Lopandic said on Thursday.

Lopandic was speaking at a session of the Yugoslav Chamber of Commerce Committee for Economic Relations with Foreign Countries.

He said that the EU Council of Ministers had adopted a decree on the implementation of autonomous trade measures towards Yugoslavia on April 29.

Under the decree, the export of Yugoslav industrial products to the EU market is mostly free but there exist quotas for the export of agricultural produce, he said.

The EU Council of Ministers also adopted a political declaration and a document defining future cooperation with the southeastern European economies.

Lopandic said that under the decree there were no duties or quotas for Yugoslavia's trade with the EU, unless stated otherwise.

The trade preferences refer to goods which originate from Yugoslavia, he said and added that the origin of goods would be setout in documents issued by the Yugoslav customs.

[06] YUGOSLAVIA MARKS WORLD WAR TWO VICTORY

Tanjug, 1997-05-08

The unconditional surrender of Germany on May 9, 1945, officially ended World War Two in Europe, the bloodiest military conflict in the history of mankind.

World War Two war spilled into the former (Kingdom of) Yugoslavia when a dawn bombardment rocked Belgrade on April 6, 1941, followed by an invasion of German, Italian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Albanian troops, that eventually reached 900,000.

In Croatia, the streets were filled with people who came out to greet the Germans, cheering the troops as they marched into Zagreb.

Croatian fascists, known as ustashas, allied themselves to Hitler, proclaiming the clerico-fascist Independent State of Croatia (NDH) on April 10. The ustashas aimed to purge multi-ethnic Croatia, then populated by about 1.5 million Serbs, by converting to catholicism about one-third of the Serbs, routing one-third, and exterminating the rest.

The extermination of hundreds of thousands of Serbs followed diligently. About 700,000 Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and anti-fascist Croatians were jilled most brutally in the Jasenovac concentration camp alone.

More than 17,000 children perished in separate death camps for children.

After the capitulation of the Royal Yugoslav Army on April 18, national uprisings were stirring up in Serbia and Montenegro, and the first units were being mustered to resist the invader.

The National Liberation Army grew from the 80,000 troops that comprised it at the end of 1941 nearly ten fold by the end of the war, with only the armies of Russia, the United States and Britain greater in strength.

The war was waged by 61 nations - a total of 2.1 billion people, which was 96 percent of the world's population.

About 50 million people died, 30 million of them civilians. About 12 million perished in the camps.

The former Yugoslavia lost 1.7 million people, most of them Serbs, and about 400,000 were wounded.

Belgrade was the only city in Europe that had two death camps, Sajmiste and Banjica, in which 80,000 patriots were executed.

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