Belgrade Objects Over EC Report Ahead of Release

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nemanja Starovic (Photo: printscreen/youtube)

The European Commission’s annual report on Serbia’s progress in EU accession shall contain a negative overtone despite Serbia’s achievements with regards to reforms, because the country’s foreign policy toward Russia is not aligned with that of the Union, said Foreign Ministry State Secretary Nemanja Starovic on Oct. 12.

“I fear that they will put far more emphasis on something that is, neither essentially nor formally, part of our obligations in the pre-accession process, at least not as such, meaning the desire of the EU and its key member states for Serbia to fully align with the EU’s foreign and security policy, i.e. to join the regime of sanctions against Russia,” Starovic told the RTS public service.

In his opinion, the EC report will contain “such an overtone,” which he believes “somewhat deviates from what the purpose [of the report] should be.”

“We’ve done quite a bit with regards to internal reforms in the past year. People forget that we conducted a constitutional reform as well. If those aren’t essential reforms that will lead us to full EU membership then I don’t know what those essential reforms could be,” Starovic said.

The state secretary added that, for now, Serbia cannot join the sanctions on Russia “for a multitude of political reasons,” namely because of political and economic security, adding that while the countries in the region joined the sanctions regime “Brussels did not valorize” their choice.