07 November 2010

SERBIA: PR Offensive For EU Membership Underway But No Loan Agreed With IMF.

G.POST/ ANALYSIS/ Teri Schultz /
     Serbia is getting aggressive about speeding its path to EU membership.
     There were a series of raids in Belgrade this week seeking fugitive Ratko Mladic (pictured), the former Bosnian Serb leader charged with genocide for his alleged role in the killing of 8,000 men and boys in Srebenica.
    And recently it bumped-up the reward fot Mladic's capture from $1.4 million to $10 million usd. In addition there was the recent apology for a Croatian massacre.
   But the EU seems unimpressed and taking a more relaxed path.
  Also, the IMF can't agree with Serbia over its next $4.3 billion tranche payment of a bailout loan... because it is failing so far to narrow the 2011 budget deficit to 4 percent of GDP from 4.8 percent this year. “I don’t think that anything went really wrong in the talks, it’s just not easy to come up with a 2011 budget in line with fiscal rules,”said Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic. “We have made progress, but we still aren’t there.”

FOR IMF Tranche story, SEE:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-05/imf-leaves-serbia-without-agreement-on-loan-payments-talks-to-continue.html