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Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders denounce UN deal with Serbs

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, July 2 (AFP) - Two parties representing ethnic Albanian Kosovars have denounced a deal struck between the province's UN administration and moderate Serb leaders, Kosovo's Albanian language press reported Sunday.

Bernard Kouchner, Kosovo's chief UN administrator, signed an accord Thursday with Bishop Artemije Radosavljevic, leader of the Serb National Council (SNV), which offered the remaining Serbs in Kosovo security guarantees in exchange for taking part in the province's interim administration.

On Sunday all the major Albanian Kosovar dailies reported that the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) of Hashim Thaci, the poltical leader of the officially-disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army, and the Unified Democratic Movement (LBD), were opposed to the deal.

"We will not accept the cantonisation of Kosovo," Thaci told the daily Koha Ditore.

The same report said that the LBD believed the deal signed by Artemije would lead to the fragmentation of Kosovo into Serbian and Albanian enclaves.

The agreement "forsees the establishment of up to 20 Local Community Offices in Serb areas," and an increased effort to recruit Serbs into the Kosovo Police Service, a new local force which works alongside the UN's international force.

Kouchner's spokeswoman flatly denied that the accord represented a step on the road to "cantonisation."

"It's exactly the opposite of cantonisation," Nadia Younes told AFP.

"The idea behind the agreement was to strengthen security and the protection of the Serbs," she said.

Jakup Krasniqi, secretary general of the PDK, told Koha Ditore that the accord was an attempt to "sow discord in the Albanian political class."

For his part, Thaci did not turn up at Friday's scheduled meeting of the Interim Administrative Council (IAC), the executive body of the province's mixed government, Younes said.

The following day he met with Kouchner and discussed, among other matters, the accord signed with the SNV, she added.

Krasniqi told Koha Ditore that the accord had bypassed the IAC and the provisions of UN Security Council resolution 1244 of June 10, 1999, under which the UN administration was set up.

Rexhep Qosja, the LBD's leader, also told the paper the agreement contradicted the resolution.

Under resolution 1244, Kosovo is to enjoy "substantial autonomy within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and ... the conditions for a peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants of Kosovo."

82 YEAR OLD SERB FARMER MURDERED!

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, July 2 (AFP) - A masked gang stabbed an elderly Serbian farmer to death in the latest in a series of attacks near the southern Kosovar town of Gnjilane, the regional UN police commander said Sunday.

Garry Carrell said the man, in his eighties, was stabbed in the back by one of four unknown men as he tended his cows in an attack near the village of Cernica at 5:15 p.m. (1515 GMT) Saturday.

Three younger Serbs escaped unhurt and their assailants ran off after the attack, Carrell said.

The official Yugoslav news agency Tanjug reported that ethnic Albanian cattle rustlers were behind the attack, and named the victim as 82-year-old Sava Stojkovic.

Carrell said the identities of the attackers, one of whom is thought to have been carrying a firearm, was unknown and that an investigation was under way.

The ethnically mixed area around Gnjilane has been the scene of a series of violent incidents over the past month.

On Friday, a grenade exploded in the yard of a Serb-owned house in the Cernica, causing no injuries.

On May 28, three people, including a four-year-old child, were shot dead. An ethnic Albanian was arrested in connection with their murder.

Over the last month at least 12 Serbs have been killed in Kosovo, which has been administered by the United Nations since June last year when a NATO-led peacekeeping force took control of the province.

The UN Security Council resolution which set up the administration states that Kosovo is to remain part of the Yugoslav federation but enjoy "substantial autonomy."

This provision falls short of the full independence demanded by ethnic Albanian politicians and former guerrilla leaders, and the area remains tense as Serbs and ethnic Albanians continue to settle scores.

Belgrade lawyers sharing UN fees with war crimes defendants:

BELGRADE, July 3 (AFP) - Several lawyers defending suspected and convicted war criminals at the United Nations tribunal for the former Yugoslavia are sharing a cut of their UN-paid fees with their notorious clients, a Belgrade daily said Monday.

"It is true that many defence lawyers share their high fees with their clients," Belgrade lawyer Vladimir Bozovic told the private daily Blic. "Defendants get between 20 and 40 percent of a lawyer's fee and the payment is usually in cash," he revealed.

Bozovic is one of the lawyers representing Bosnian Serb Dusan Tadic, who is serving 20 years for war crimes committed in the 1992-1995 Bosnia conflict.

He said the "idea might have come from certain dishonorable lawyers who, by representing many clients in the same time, have been making enormous amounts of money."

When they "realised such move might fail, they started offering money to their clients," he explained, describing the situation as "absurd."

"War crimes suspects are now choosing lawyers depending of the amount of money they would receive, without thinking whether they would be able to defend them," Bozovic charged.

Insisting that "enormous amount of money are given" to the clients because of the high fees, Bozovic said that some of his colleagues had earned more than 500,000 German marks (250,000 dollars/euros).

"Defendants often say they do not care whether they are cleared of charges. The only thing important to them is to get more money than they could have earned, being free, during their lifetime," Bozovic added.

The International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) announced Saturday said it was investigating reports that Serb and Croat defence lawyers have been sharing part of the fees they are paid by the UN for their services.

ICTY spokesman Jim Landale said "the registry is aware of the reports that these facts may happen."

"We're trying as much as we can to see if it's true," he added. "So there is a concern."

Forty-three suspects out of a total of 69 officially indicted have been handed over to the ICTY.

The most senior Bosnian Serb suspect captured to date is Momcilo Krajisnik, former aide to Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.
Karadzic, along with his military chief Ratko Mladic, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, Serbian President Milan Milutinovic and Yugoslav Defence Minister Dragoljub Ojdanic, is still being sought by the tribunal.

Croatian president rules out ties with 'fascist' Belgrade

ROME, July 3 (AFP) - Croatian President Stipe Mesic ruled out on Monday any cooperation with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and his government which he referred to as a fascist regime."

"Relations with Montenegro and Kosovo improve by the day but they are deadlocked with Serbia," Mesic said in an interview with the newspaper La Stampa.

Mesic is to begin a two-day official visit to Italy, Croatia's second most important trading partner after Germany, on Tuesday.

He said Belgrade "must understand that Serbs who live outside their country are a link allowing cooperation with neighboring countries and not a pretext to conquer other territories."

"Milosevic's regime is strictly speaking a fascist regime and we have no intention of working with it," he added.

Mesic also praised Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic for his apology last month to Croatia after Montenegrins took part in a former Yugoslav army clampdown during the 1991 Serb-Croat separatist conflict.

Djukanovic's apology last month was "a first step," he said. Montenegro and Serbia make up the rump Yugoslav federation, now ruled by Milosevic with an iron hand.

Since Djukanovic took office in 1998, tensions have risen between the two partners, with Montenegro accusing Milosevic, indicted by a UN court for war crimes, of being responsible for the international isolation of the country and for a repressive internal policy.

Un Serbe tu� au Kosovo

2 juillet 2000

PRISTINA, Yougoslavia (AP) -- Un Serbe a �t� tu� samedi pr�s du village de Gornji Livoc (50 km au sud-est de Pristina) dans la r�gion de Gnjilane au Kosovo, par des agresseurs non identifi�s, ont annonc� dimanche les soldats am�ricains de la KFOR.

Selon le sergent William Kuhns, la querelle porterait sur une histoire de b�tail. Des h�licopt�res recherchaient quatre suspects vus fuyant le lieu du crime et sept personnes ont �t� interrog�es puis rel�ch�es faute de preuves.

Selon l'agence serbe Beta, la victime est Sava Stojkovic, 82 ans, qui s'occupait de ses b�tes avec six autres paysans lorsqu'un groupe d'Albanais est arriv� et a tu� le vieil homme, les autres Serbes r�ussissant � s'�chapper.

Serbie: poursuite de la repression contre les etudiants opposants

2 juillet 2000

BELGRADE (AP) -- Pas de tr�ve dans la r�pression des opposants en Serbie: Milos Stojanovic, leader du mouvement �tudiant Otpor (R�sistance), a �t� condamn� � dix jours de prison par un tribunal de Belgrade pour non pr�sentation de documents de r�sidence valides, a rapport� dimanche l'agence ind�pendante Beta.

Peu apr�s la condamnation samedi de Stojanovic, deux autres membres de Otpor ont �t� interpell�s dans la ville de Novi Sad (nord) et interrog�s plusieurs heures par la police. Ils avaient �t� surpris avec des T-shirts portant le signe de leur mouvement, un poing serr�.

A 90km au sud de Belgrade, dans la ville de Gornji Milanovac, quatre autres �tudiants, �galement membres d'Otpor, et trois militants d'opposition ont �t� appr�hend�s alors qu'ils participaient � une manifestation pour la propr�t� des rues. Ils ont �t� remis en libert� une heure plus tard apr�s un interrogatoire sur leurs ''activit�s s�ditieuses''.

De plus en plus populaire parmi les opposants � Slobodan Milosevic, le mouvement Otpor est d�sormais diabolis� par le r�gime de Belgrade, qui le qualifie d'organisation ''terroriste'' soutenue financi�rement par l'Occident.

Yugoslav war crimes court upholds torture charges

July 3, 2000

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal Monday dismissed a defense motion for torture charges to be dropped against two Bosnian Serb paramilitary fighters accused of systematically raping Muslim women.

The ruling confirmed a growing tendency at international courts to consider rape as one of the gravest violations of the laws of war, punishable on various counts.

A three-judge panel led by Florence Mumba of Zambia ruled to dismiss a single charge of plunder against key defendant Dragoljub Kunarac and declared the testimony of one witness to be inadmissible against another defendant, Zoran Vukovic. A written elaboration of the decision was to be released later.

The Foca rape trial is the first prosecution of wartime sexual enslavement. It also is the first at the U.N. tribunal on Yugoslavia, set up in 1993, to consider rape as a crime against humanity, as it had been in another tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, for the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The defense had asked the court to dismiss 11 counts against the two defendants, mostly charging torture.

In their motion, the lawyers maintained that a witness identified as No. 48 did not recognize Vukovic in court. They also said the plunder charge against Kunarac, the only one on the indictment, was based on an allegation of a minor theft of money and gold of value that "was not high."

The indictment charges Kunarac and Vukovic, along with a third defendant, Radomir Kovac, with a total of 33 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including rape, enslavement and outrages upon personal dignity. Kovac is not charged with torture.

The defendants have pleaded innocent to all counts, which carry a maximum life sentence.

The rapes allegedly occurred in the early stages of the 1992-95 Bosnian war in Foca, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) southeast of Sarajevo.

Since the trial began on March 20, the court has heard harrowing accounts from 16 rape victims, describing how dozens of Muslim women were held in a high school, a sports hall and a motel and taken out nightly for beatings and rapes at gunpoint.

One of the victims was 12 years old.

Prosecutors have insisted that the rapes constituted a key strategic element of "ethnic cleansing" purges aimed at intimidating the Muslim population and forcing them to flee areas Serbs wanted for themselves.

In their motion, the Serbs' defense lawyers maintained that whatever the verdict on the rape counts, the prosecution "did not prove basic elements of the criminal offense of torture."

They argued that the men were ordinary soldiers acting privately, and therefore could not be held liable for torture as a crime against humanity, or systematic offense. They also argued that the sexual assaults, as alleged, were not carried out to obtain information or confessions.

In a December 1998 verdict against Bosnian Croat Anto Furudzija, the tribunal ruled that for torture to be punishable as a war crime, it must be perpetrated on behalf of an "authority-wielding entity" and "aim at obtaining information or a confession, or at punishing, intimidating, humiliating or coercing the victim."

After Monday's ruling, the court went into closed session to consider motions regarding protected witnesses and delayed the start of the defense case until Tuesday.

The trial is expected to last until the end of the year.

BC-War Crimes-Sexual Torture,0623 Court rejects motion for torture charges to be dropped in Bosnian rape trial

By JEROME SOCOLOVSKY

June 03, 2000

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) _ The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal Monday dismissed a defense motion for torture charges to be dropped against two Bosnian Serb paramilitary fighters accused of systematically raping Muslim women.

The ruling confirmed a growing tendency at international courts to consider rape as one of the gravest violations of the laws of war, punishable on various counts.

A three-judge panel led by Florence Mumba of Zambia ruled to dismiss a single charge of plunder against key defendant Dragoljub Kunarac and declared the testimony of one witness to be inadmissible against another defendant, Zoran Vukovic. A written elaboration of the decision was to be released later.

The Foca rape trial is the first prosecution of wartime sexual enslavement. It also is the first at the U.N. tribunal on Yugoslavia, set up in 1993, to consider rape as a crime against humanity, as it had been in another tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, for the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The defense had asked the court to dismiss 11 counts against the two defendants, mostly charging torture.   In their motion, the lawyers maintained that a witness identified as No. 48 did not recognize Vukovic in court. They also said the plunder charge against Kunarac, the only one on the indictment, was based on an allegation of a minor theft of money and gold of value that ``was not high.''

The indictment charges Kunarac and Vukovic, along with a third defendant, Radomir Kovac, with a total of 33 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including rape, enslavement and outrages upon personal dignity. Kovac is not charged with torture.

The defendants have pleaded innocent to all counts, which carry a maximum life sentence.   The rapes allegedly occurred in the early stages of the 1992-95 Bosnian war in Foca, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) southeast of Sarajevo.

Since the trial began on March 20, the court has heard harrowing accounts from 16 rape victims, describing how dozens of Muslim women were held in a high school, a sports hall and a motel and taken out nightly for beatings and rapes at gunpoint.

One of the victims was 12 years old. Prosecutors have insisted that the rapes constituted a key strategic element of ``ethnic cleansing'' purges aimed at intimidating the Muslim population and forcing them to flee areas Serbs wanted for themselves.

In their motion, the Serbs' defense lawyers maintained that whatever the verdict on the rape counts, the prosecution ``did not prove basic elements of the criminal offense of torture.''

They argued that the men were ordinary soldiers acting privately, and therefore could not be held liable for torture as a crime against humanity, or systematic offense. They also argued that the sexual assaults, as alleged, were not carried out to obtain information or confessions.

In a December 1998 verdict against Bosnian Croat Anto Furudzija, the tribunal ruled that for torture to be punishable as a war crime, it must be perpetrated on behalf of an ``authority-wielding entity'' and ``aim at obtaining information or a confession, or at punishing, intimidating, humiliating or coercing the victim.''

After Monday's ruling, the court went into closed session to consider motions regarding protected witnesses and delayed the start of the defense case until Tuesday.   The trial is expected to last until the end of the year.

War Crimes Tribunal to investigate defence lawyers

July 03, 2000

The Hague (dpa) - The U.N. War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague confirmed on Monday it would investigate allegations that some defence lawyers had channelled part of their fees to defendants.

Dutch and Yugoslav newspapers have published claims that some defence lawyers appearing at the tribunal have passed on 20-30 per cent of their fees to men accused of war crimes during the Balkans conflict, as a reward for bringing them business.

Yugoslav press reports estimate the lawyers' fees at 80-110 dollars per hour. A Dutch newspaper claimed one lawyer had enabled the family of one accused man to buy a house in Belgrade.

A spokesman for the Tribunal said investigations into the allegations had begun. Legal sources believe the investigation will have important implications in cases where the accused claim to have no money to fund their defence.

A Yugoslav attorney who defended Dusan Tadic at the Hague Tribunal said some of his colleagues got the job by bribing the indicted for war crimes, the Belgrade daily Blic reported Monday.   Lawyer Vladimir Bozovic told the paper that the accused ``frequently say that don't care if they'd be convicted or not''.

``All they want is to make sure they get more money than they'd earn in a lifetime in freedom'', he said.   Blic said rumours circulate the Yugoslav lawyers' community of fortunes, ``worth more than half a million marks, built on fictitious costs''.

Revenue from work at the tribunal is no more than ``solid'' in the view of Western lawyers, but is ``enormous'' from the perspective of attorneys from the area of the former Yugoslavia, the paper added.

Draskovic: Final decision on elections after they are scheduled

July 02, 2000

Belgrade (dpa) - The Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) would decide if it would run in any elections only after they are scheduled and after it evaluates the conditions they would be held under, president of the party Vuk Draskovic said.

``If they (the conditions) are unacceptable, if it's clear that the goal is a farce to give some sort of legitimacy to the regime... we will not participate'', Draskovic told the Belgrade daily Glas Javnosti.

He stressed that SPO would continue to push for early elections at all levels of government in Serbia and the Yugoslav federation, ``as agreed by opposition parties'' January 10.
He accused the rest of the Serbian opposition of breaching the agreement by pledging to run ``in any elections'' and ``so sending the message to the regime to step up the terror''.

Local elections in Serbia and polls for the federal parliament are due this year, but haven't been scheduled yet. The key parliamentary elections in Serbia are due in 2001.

Draskovic rejected objections that SPO, dominant in the Belgrade local government, easily gave up on the capital's television station Studio B after the authorities took it over in May and complained that ``half a million people didn't take to the streets to defend it''.

During the violent crackdown by the Serbian police on protests against the Studio B takeover, Draskovic was in Budva, reportedly with stomach problems.

E.U. exempts 190 Serbian firms from financial sanctions

July 03, 2000

Brussels (dpa) - The European Union's executive Commission Monday published a ``white list'' of 190 Serbian companies which will be exempt from E.U. financial sanctions imposed on the regime of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

Commission spokesman Gunnar Wiegand said the E.U. had selected the companies because they were able to prove that they were not owned, controlled or working on behalf of the governments of Serbia or of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia.

E.U. governments agreed earlier this year to toughen existing sanctions against the Milosevic government but said the restrictions must be fine-tuned to hit only businesses which had links with Belgrade. Wiegand said that about 300 companies had applied for the special exemption status. Now the E.U. had selected an initial 190 firms.

``The commission expects to approve an additional list of some 50 companies later in July and further companies can be added on the basis of new applications,'' the spokesman said. The E.U. agency said that companies that wanted to be on the so-called ``white list'' would have to prove that the value of their transactions with the Union were below 100,000 euros (95,000 dollars) per month.

Companies would also have to show that they were not active in sectors which were dominated by state-owned enterprises, including banking, financial services, energy and fuel supply and iron and steel, the commission said. The new E.U. ``white list'' went into effect on July 1 and will remain valid until January 31, 2001.

EU Approves Trade With 190 Yugoslav Companies

BRUSSELS, Jul 2, 2000 -- (Reuters) The European Commission approved a list of
190 Yugoslav companies on Friday which will be allowed to trade with EU member states despite sanctions against Belgrade, a Commission spokesman said.

The move, rewarding firms which can withhold their revenues from the Serbian and Yugoslav governments, is part of a policy intended to target EU penalties against Yugoslavia more effectively and isolate Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

The Commission spokesman said the list would come into force on Saturday. It follows a decision earlier this year to suspend a ban on airlines with Yugoslavia but stiffen other sanctions over Belgrade's role in years of violence in the region.

"The Commission has adopted the list of 190 companies. We have selected the firms which looked pretty good up until now and we can add others later," the spokesman said by telephone.

He did not name the companies which will be allowed to trade with the 15 EU member states, which he said replaces a list of companies barred from such trade.

Diplomats said Britain, the Netherlands and Denmark had been prominent supporters of the decision, although some member states had reservations about it.

The Yugoslav authorities have poured scorn on the plan and some EU diplomats have said it will be hard to implement.

The EU has set out this year to amend its sanctions policy in efforts to ease hardship on ordinary Serbs and encourage Yugoslavia's democratic opposition, while increasing problems for Milosevic, a United Nations-indicted war criminal.

Serb Father Rejects Damages for Son Killed in War

KRALJEVO, Jul 2, 2000 -- (Reuters) The father of a Yugoslav soldier killed in Kosovo during last year's NATO's air strikes on Friday rejected the damages awarded to him by a Serbian court.

The Vukovic family had demanded 50 million dinars ($1.2 million) in compensation from the state and the army, which they blamed for the death of Aleksandar, 20, while serving in Kosovo last April. The army said the charges were groundless.

Judge Biljana Miladinovic said the state had to pay one million dinars ($24,000 at the black market rate), including 400,000 dinars to Aleksandar's parents, 200,000 to his sister, and 47,000 for the burial, the Glas Javnosti daily said.

Dusan Vukovic said he had refused the damages offer and would pursue the case because he wanted explanations.

"The army is to blame for all of this. It has to be known why our children were killed," Vukovic told Reuters.

He said the army had not announced on television the names of soldiers killed in Kosovo as it had promised.
"I call on other parents who were left without their loved ones to follow suit and stand up against the regime, that is against (Yugoslav President) Slobodan Milosevic, to avoid new conflicts and preserve what we have," he said.

The army has said just over one thousand soldiers and police were killed in the
1998-99 Kosovo conflict.

Aleksandar's father last year refused a posthumous medal awarded to his son, saying Milosevic had sent him and many others to wars from which they did not return.

NATO bombed Yugoslavia for 11 weeks last year to halt Belgrade's repression of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority. Milosevic ceded Kosovo to a NATO-led international force in June after the air strikes

Serbian Activist Charged With Attempted Murder

BELGRADE, Jul 1, 2000 -- (Reuters) A Serbian prosecutor has charged an opposition activist with the attempted murder of an associate of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's son, independent Beta news agency said on Friday.

Momcilo Veljkovic, an activist from the student-based Otpor movement and a member of the opposition Serbian Renewal Movement, was arrested on May 2 in Milosevic's home town of Pozarevac, along with two others after a fight with associates of Milosevic's powerful son Marko.

The activists said Marko's associates had beaten them up in a cafe in Pozarevac when they came to help another activist who was being harassed. Eyewitnesses said Veljkovic fought back.

Opposition media have been hit by a series of fines for their accounts of the incident, which shook the authorities.

Police prevented demonstrators and many journalists from reaching a rally called by the opposition in Pozarevac on May 9 to protest the alleged beatings. The opposition then cancelled the rally for fear of a clash with other locals.

A public prosecutor in Pozarevac, Jovo Stanojevic, resigned over the case and a deputy president of the Pozarevac court was relieved of his duties for participating in an opposition gathering in the town, 70 km (44 miles) east of Belgrade.

Members of Veljkovic's family said they were told the decision to charge him with attempted murder had been made on the basis of a written recommendation from the Serbian prosecutor, Beta said.

Charges of participation in the fight were filed against two other Otpor activists, Radojko Lukovic and Nebojsa Sokolovic, and employees of Marko Milosevic's discotheque "Madonna" - Sasa Lazic and Milan Lazic, it said.

Charges were dismissed against four others involved.

The Pozarevac district court decided on Friday to release Veljkovic, charged with attempted murder, and Lukovic, from detention pending trial, Beta said.

EU starts ``positive sanctions'' for Yugosavia

BRUSSELS, July 3 (Reuters) - The European Commission on Monday introduced a further refinement of EU sanctions against Yugoslavia, listing 190 private companies to be rewarded as legitimate trading partners. The so-called ``white list'' applies to firms and institutions which can prove they have no connection with the federal government of Yugoslavia or that of Serbia, the federation's dominant partner.

The Commission said in a statement that about 300 Serb companies had applied for consideration and it expected to add a further 50 or so names to the positive sanctions list later this month. To qualify for exemption from overall financial sanctions companies must show that they can withhold revenues earned in EU trade from the state, and that they are not engaged in banking, energy supply, military, police, transport, petrochemicals or steel -- sectors dominated by the Belgrade government.

They will also have to show that transactions with the 15-member bloc have a value of less than 100,000 euro (dollars) per month. The move to reward independent firms is part of a policy of so-called ``smart sanctions'' aimed at targetting the regime of President Slobodan Milosevic while minimising the impact on ordinary Serbs.

The Yugoslav authorities have poured scorn on the plan and some EU diplomats have said it will be hard to implement. It follows a decision earlier this year to suspend a ban on airlinks with Yugoslavia but stiffen other sanctions over Belgrade's role in years of violence in the region.

Diplomats said Britain, the Netherlands and Denmark had been prominent supporters of the decision, although some member states including Spain had reservations about it.