11/02/2009 Monitoring
Strasbourg, 11.02.2009 – “Transparent and efficient functioning of democratic institutions, which citizens can trust, is an essential pre-condition for closing the monitoring with respect to Serbia,” yesterday said Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly co-rapporteur on Serbia Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC) at the end of a two-day visit to the country.
“Since the last parliamentary elections of May 2008, Serbia has made noticeable progress in a number of reform areas -he continued- commending the current political stability as well as the adoption of a number of key laws relating to European integration, reform of the judiciary and fight against corruption.
"However, in a genuine democracy, the country’s future cannot be decided by the leaders of political parties alone and the members of Parliament should engage in a constructive dialogue about various political options, as free representatives of the citizens and not mere ‘tools’ of political parties. Guaranteeing the rights of the opposition is an essential element of democracy, but the opposition should not be able to block the parliamentary process,” he stressed.
“The revision of parliamentary rules of procedure is only part of the solution. Most importantly, the electoral system should be reformed to make sure that the views of all citizens of Serbia are represented in parliament, for example, by introducing open regional lists,” Mr Gross noted.