Brnabic: We wanted new competition for REM council, blockaders resorted to violence

BELGRADE - Serbian Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic said on Monday the ruling coalition's idea to accept an opposition initiative to halt a process of electing the Council of the Regulatory Authority on Electronic Media (REM) and instead open a competition for a new Council was seriously in doubt following "unheard-of" acts of violence committed by blockaders in Nis and Novi Sad earlier in the day.

At a press briefing, Brnabic said deciding in favour of opening the competition at a session of the parliamentary committee on culture and information, which was due to meet this afternoon, had been conceived as another way of opening dialogue and working together.

"We also discussed that over the weekend and today early in the morning until this started happening - first in Nis and then in Novi Sad. That revolting, monstrous violence that every normal person is Serbia is literally disgusted by," she said.

"In fact, the decision was conceived as another way of opening dialogue, extending a hand and working together, and then you see that none of that matters to them," Brnabic said, adding that the blockaders were escalating tensions, rather than defusing them.

"They almost killed a man and broke into the Clinical Centre in Nis. So, we will see what the decision will be, but it was conceived, the initial plan was, to extend a hand and that we continue to work together - we, the opposition and civil society organisations. We will now see what things will look like after this violence fair, this violence fest, because, evidently, they do not care at all about the hand that has been extended to them," Brnabic said.

She noted that Dinko Gruhonjic and Brajan Brkovic were behind the violence in Novi Sad and Nis, and added that their only goal was to destroy Serbia.

Brnabic also said they were people whose only goal was to "dismember Serbia and separate Vojvodina and get it to become a republic."

When they realised that will not work, they switched to Novi Pazar and then started talking about 'Sandzak' (the Raska District, southwestern Serbia) becoming a republic, she said.