Opposition Official: Regime’s Systematic Anti-Western Campaign Reason for Public Distrust of EU

Dusko Lopandic (Photo: Milos Miskov)

Dusko Lopandic, the vice-president of the European Movement in Serbia, said on Dec. 26 that there are multiple reasons why EU membership is less attractive to people in Serbia compared to the rest of the region, but that the main cause for this skepticism is “the systematic anti-Western campaign led by the [country’s] top leadership for over half a decade.”

“That campaign has run parallel to the accession negotiations – which is absurd,” Lopandic, who is also vice-president of the Serbia Center party, told the NIN weekly.

According to him, this state of affairs has only begun changing over the past several months, with President Aleksandar Vucic now saying that Serbia will fulfill all its obligations for EU membership by 2026.

Asked about Eurobarometer’s latest poll, which states that only 38 percent of interviewees from Serbia expressed trust in the EU, Lopandic claimed that the underlying cause for this is the length of negotiations, “which has gone beyond reason,” and is not restricted to Serbia alone.

“To that one should also add that the issue of [EU] membership is linked to other [issues], such as Kosovo, so the Serbian public has been exposed to a negative narrative for a very long time now,” Lopandic concluded.