Serbia’s Policies Are Independent, EU Membership Still a Goal, Vucic Tells BBC

Aleksandar Vucic (BETAPHOTO/MILAN ILIC)

In a Nov. 25 interview for BBC, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic stated that Serbia is committed to joining the EU, but that the country’s policies are independent and aimed at good neighborly relations.

“We will conduct all the necessary reforms. We’ll speed up all processes and do our best to finish everything by the end of 2026. That doesn’t mean we’ll become part of the EU in 2027 or 2028. But will we speak poorly of our traditional friends and partners from the East, [with whom] we’ve had good relations to this day?” Vucic said during a guest appearance on BBC’s HARDtalk.

Asked about the EU seeing signs of basic human rights being violated in Serbia – such as freedom of the press and independence of the judiciary – and the Union taking this as a sign that Serbia is distancing itself from the EU, Vucic replied that the European Commission’s latest report stated that Serbia has achieved limited progress, which in itself precludes retrogression.

Furthermore, he added, this is why Serbia is cooperating closely with the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights to improve, among other things, the country’s elections process.

With regards to Serbia’s relations with Russia and his interviewer pointing out that the two countries’ energy sectors have deepened ties since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vucic stated that the volume of trade between Serbia and Russia is half of what it used to be and that Belgrade is trying to diversify its sources of energy, which is why it constructed a gas interconnector with Bulgaria.

Regarding Belgrade’s relationship with Pristina, the president said that nowhere in the normalization process was Serbia required to de facto recognize Kosovo. “Nowhere is that written nor was it ever said,” he stated.

“Normalization means that we live in peace, stability and serenity, that we have a free flow of goods, capital, people, services, that we develop our economies, that we begin talking about various issues and attempting to resolve them,” Vucic concluded.