Brnabic: No agreement reached, everything came down to election date

BELGRADE - Serbian Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic said Wednesday's meeting between the ruling coalition and the opposition on electoral conditions had been the best yet but that no agreement had been reached because the discussions had come down to the date of the upcoming Belgrade local elections, called for June 2.

"In terms of constructivity and exchanges of arguments, this meeting was by far the best to date. A very good meeting and I think any parliament in the world would be proud. I think that was the tone and the behaviour that we owe to the citizens," Brnabic told reporters in the parliament building.

"There were slightly more discussions at this meeting about electoral conditions... but not about the electoral roll, ODIHR recommendations and about whether they should be implemented sooner or later," she said, reiterating that working bodies would be set up to implement the recommendations and to supervise and revise the electoral roll.

Representatives of the opposition Serbia Against Violence coalition said no progress had been made in the dialogue on electoral conditions and that a decision on whether the coalition would participate in the Belgrade elections would be announced on Friday.

"We did not budge from where we were at the beginning, everyone stands by their positions," the coalition said.

Zdravko Ponos, leader of the coalition's Serbia Centre party, said the ruling coalition had decided to "run in the elections with or without us."

"We can wait for one or two more days, but we cannot run in these elections under these conditions," he said.