European Parliamentarians Concerned about Drop in Support for Serbia’s EU Accession

European Parliament (Photo: European Union 2019/EP/Gabor Kovacs)

Representatives of the European Parliament shared their concerns with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic during a Jan. 27 visit to Belgrade as popular support for Serbia’s accession to the European Union (EU) has dropped as a result of Russian and Chinese investments in Serbia, and also criticized stagnation in the area of the freedom of speech.

The Office of the President of Serbia said that the president “carefully listened to” and responded to the arguments of EP rapporteur for Serbia Vladimir Bilcik and Matjaz Nemec, a member of the delegation of the EU-Serbia Stabilization and Association Parliamentary Committee who is visiting Serbia. Vucic discussed Serbia's accession to the EU with the two parliamentarians, a draft EP report on Serbia written by Bilcik, interparty dialogue and the current situation.

They also discussed the level of Serbia’s alignment with the Union’s common foreign and security policy, especially Belgrade’s decision not to join EU sanctions against Russia, the Office went on to say in the statement.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic met with the European parliamentarians and said that she was not pleased with the documents that the EU's legislative body passed recently. Brnabic said that "the drafting of bills on the judiciary adopted by the Government of Serbia” were not mentioned. “In addition, the fact that Serbia aligned its visa regime with the Union’s very quickly and to a large extent, hasn’t been received as it ought to either,” she added.

The members of the European Parliament met in Belgrade, on Jan. 27, with representatives of government and the opposition as part of a third round of an EU-mediated interparty dialogue.