Picula: In My Assessment of Belgrade, I Will Insist on Fulfilling EU Accession Requirements

Tonino Picula (BETAPHOTO/European Parliament/Philippe BUISSIN)

The new permanent rapporteur of the European Parliament (EP) for Serbia, Croatian MEP Tonino Picula, said on Oct. 23 that in his assessment of the progress Belgrade should make on its path to the European Union, he would insist on the fulfillment of the requirements set for candidate countries seeking EU membership.

"My job is to talk to representatives of the institutions that must do a lion’s share of the job, because the authorities are most responsible for the situation in a country. It is up to me to communicate expectations in the talks with government representatives, and to analyze what is generally considered necessary to be done," Picula told the Hina agency.

Picula added that he expected the process to be complex, but that his "European and national" political experience was on his side. "In any case, I will act in an informed but also principled manner," Picula made clear in the interview with Hina after he had been appointed to serve a five-year term as the EP's permanent rapporteur for Serbia in Strasbourg, on Oct. 22.

When asked about being called “a Serb hater” by some pro-government Serbian media outlets,  Picula said that his prior experience had given him "a kind of resistance to anything that is not justified criticism, but is rather ideologically or value-laden." Picula underlined that of all three EU institutions, the European Parliament had always been the most consistent advocate of enlargement policy, based on the fulfillment of criteria.