Serbian pro-Europe parties near power-sharing deal

Mark Tran and agencies

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/24/serbia.eu

The Serbian president, Boris Tadic, left, with Ivica Dacic, the leader of the country's Socialists. Photograph: Srdjan Ilic/AP

The EU today welcomed the prospect of a pro-European government in Belgrade, after six weeks of hard bargaining between Serbian political parties.

Serbian officials said the pro-western Democratic party and the Socialists were close to a decision on sharing out government posts, after they agreed yesterday to form an alliance following elections in May.

"The prime minister's seat belongs to the Democrats," said the Socialist leader, Ivica Dacic.

Political sources said the frontrunner for prime minister was the outgoing finance minister, Mirko Cvetkovic, a 57-year-old Democrat. The foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, 32, was also seen as a possible contender.

The Socialists will fill the post of deputy prime minister, ministries such as infrastructure and energy, and the parliamentary speaker.

The Socialists were once headed by Slobodan Milosevic, who led Serbia and later the rump Yugoslavia into the wars of the 1990s, and was ousted in 2000. Most of the party's leaders say the Socialists now want to be a modern, European centre-left party. But there are still hardliners loyal to Milosevic's legacy, and it is unclear how much influence they will have in the new government.

The Democrats, led by the president, Boris Tadic, won the most votes in May, but failed to clinch a majority in the 250-seat parliament. The nationalist Radicals and the Democratic party of Serbia (DSS), led by the outgoing prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, came second and third respectively. Both opposed EU membership during campaigning for the May election and said they wanted to align Serbia more closely with Russia.

The EU enlargement commissioner, Olli Rehn, said the agreement between the Socialists and Democrats was a real chance to establish a pro-European government. "I am very much looking forward to working with that government," he said in Brussels.

The EU hopes a coalition between Democrats and Socialists will deliver war crime suspects to the UN tribunal in The Hague and will take a softer line on Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in February. But Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic, the Socialists' vice-president and official nominee for the post of parliamentary speaker, said her party would not budge on its opposition to the UN tribunal.

Milosevic died while on trial at the UN tribunal for former Yugoslavia, in The Hague, in 2006. The Socialists said at the time that he was murdered.