Stephen Wordsworth

Working tempo picking up

The work tempo is starting to pick up again after the summer break, with people now back at their desks.  

At the beginning of this month I hosted our annual reception for all the people from Serbia who have studied in the UK under our 'Chevening' scholarship scheme.  It was a chance to see some old friends, and to send on their way the latest group of young scholars who are just about to begin their studies in the UK - at prestigious institutions such as the London School of Economics, Oxford University and others.  This year we have been able - despite the global economic crisis - to increase the number of scholarships we are offering - fourteen in all.  We are just starting the search for good candidates for next year, with plans to present our programme at various universities around Serbia.  

We have a wide range of other activities planned for the autumn.  My Defence Attaché will blog separately on the successful visit here by one of our Defence Ministers (and two Hawk training aircraft) for the 14 September Air Show in Belgrade.  We look forward to Serbia playing a bigger role in international military cooperation, including in the framework of the NATO Partnership for Peace.  Serbia has a strong military tradition, and lots to offer.  But clearly it’s up to the Serbian government to decide on the pace and extent of its international engagement.   

On 16 September, I spoke at the annual Summer School for Democracy, on the theme of regional cooperation and EU integration.  Afterwards a journalist asked me if I thought it was right for Serbia to submit its formal application for EU candidate status by the end of this year, whether or not the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) had come into force by then.  Several Serbian Ministers have recently said that Serbia will do so.  I had to say that we didn't think that would work.  While we fully support Serbia's goal of EU membership, and can understand Serbia's frustration at the delay, if the SAA is still blocked in December any candidate membership application would just be blocked too.  We really can't see any alternative to going step by step.  In the meantime, Serbia needs to go on doing all it can to get the best possible report from the International Criminal Tribunal (ICTY) when the Chief Prosecutor visits Belgrade again in November.  That's the way to unblock things.  This comment got into most of the press - naturally, because it's an important issue.  So there's lots to do here this autumn. 

Serbian-speaking readers might want to know that the Embassy is now also blogging on B92 - we hope you will join us there.  We are getting a lot of comments already, which is opening up some good discussions.

Posted at 16:15 17 September 2009 by Stephen Wordsworth  |  Comments[1]