Dacic slams decision to accept recommendation for CoE membership for so-called Kosovo

BELGRADE - Serbian FM Ivica Dacic slammed on Wednesday as "disgraceful and scandalous" a decision by the Committee on Political Affairs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to accept a recommendation to invite the so-called Kosovo to membership in the CoE.

In a statement released by the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dacic said the decision destroyed "all the principles the CoE rests upon because admission of a territory that is not a UN member and is not internationally recognised has been proposed for the first time."

He added that the decision jeopardised the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia and was "another proof of a headlong demise and the end of international law."

At a meeting in Paris this afternoon, the PACE committee passed the recommendation by 31 votes in favour, four votes against and one abstention.

The representatives of Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Maja Vukicevic and Snjezana Novakovic, as well as Serbia's Biljana Pantic Pilja and Dunja Simonovic Bratic voted against, while the representative of Greece abstained.

The vote was preceded by a report by PACE rapporteur Dora Bakoyannis, who set three conditions for Pristina, of which it met only one - the return of land to the Serbian Orthodox monastery of Visoki Decani.

On its official X account, the CoE said the next step was an April 18 plenary debate at which the PACE was due to vote on the issue.