The Serbian government is consistently refusing the mission of the Council of Europe on the state of democracy in Serbia, and particularly on the situation in local self-governments, announced one of the founders of the opposition Alliance for Serbia (SzS) and leader of Together for Serbia (ZZS) Nebojsa Zelenovic on Friday, after the meeting with the Head of the Council of Europe Mission in Serbia Tobias Flessenkemper.

Zelenovic reminded that the Chairman of the Committee for Monitoring of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, Leen Verbeek had announced that a postmonitoring would be organized about the situation in Serbia, and that the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government denied this information.

“Verbeek clearly stated that, at the meeting with Minister Ruzic, he had discussed the introduction of a post-monitoring mission in Serbia. However, Minister Ruzic at first accepted this, and then he received slaps from the government senior officials, and the postmonitoring mission was not accepted, something which has never happened in the history of the Council of Europe. This is a diplomatic scandal which still has not been corrected”, Zelenovic said.

“Today the authorities are talking about their alleged readiness to organize honest elections, and in fact they have forbidden the Council of Europe to send a mission which would determine all the things that the authorities are using to smother basic democratic freedoms. It is therefore clear that in Serbia there is neither any democracy nor elections; it is all Vucic’s circus which has only one goal – survival in power at any price”, Zelenovic concluded.