Serbia's parliament approved on Monday evening the new pro-EU government headed by former finance minister Mirko Cvetkovic.
Out of the total 250 lawmakers, 127 voted for Cvetkovic's government, while 27 were against it. Ten lawmakers did not vote and the rest absented themselves from the vote.
Cvetkovic and his ministers were immediately sworn in after the vote.
"I pledge allegiance to the Republic of Serbia and promise with my honor that I will respect the Constitution ... and be devoted to preserving Kosovo within Serbia," Cvetkovic said after being sworn in.
Earlier on Monday, Cvetkovic told the parliament that the new government would focus on speeding up Serbia's progress toward EU membership, strengthening the economic development and continuing the fight for Kosovo's sovereignty.
"Our plan is that at the end of this government's mandate Serbia will be ready to get into the EU," said Cvetkovic, adding that the new government would seek to bring down unemployment and inflation and step up investment in infrastructure, while aiming for annual economic growth of seven percent.
Cvetkovic also pledged strict compliance with all international obligations -- a veiled reference to EU demands that the new government deliver remaining war crimes suspects, including former Bosnian Serb army general Ratko Mladic and his wartime superior Radovan Karadzic, to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The new ruling coalition is constituted by the pro-European alliance led by the Democratic Party of President Boris Tadic, the coalition gathered around the Socialists, the Muslim Sandzak coalition and an ethnic Hungarian party.
Cvetkovic, 58-year-old, was appointed on June 27 the new prime minister for the formation of the new government following the general elections in May.
Cvetkovic's government consists of four deputy prime ministers and 24 ministries, reflecting weeks of horse-trading over posts ina coalition that brings together 11 parties.
The Tadic-led "For a European Serbia" alliance won the May 11 elections, securing 102 of the 250 parliament seats while the nearest rival ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) won 78seats. No party could form a parliament majority to set up a government without the Socialists-led coalition which has 20 seats.
Tadic's pro-European alliance and the Socialists -- formerly bitter rivals -- promised the new government would seek to speed up Serbia's integration into the European Union and continue to reject Kosovo's independence self-proclaimed in February.
The former government of nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, a coalition of his Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and Tadic's Democrats, fell apart in early March because of a dispute about a pre-membership agreement with the EU after most of the 27-nation bloc recognized the independence of Serbia's ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo province.
Source:Xinhua
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