Kos: Serbian Government Needs to Prove Worthy of EU Admission

Marta Kos (BETAPHOTO/EC - Audiovisual Service/Martine Perret)

The European Commission’s priority is for Serbia to remain on its European path, but the Serbian government needs to show via reforms that it deserves admission into the EU, the Union’s Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos said on July 20.

In an evening guest appearance on Slovenia’s public broadcaster RTV-SLO, Kos insisted that “it isn’t enough” that the EC has voiced its commitment to Serbia’s EU path but rather that the country “has to enact numerous reforms to prove it truly deserves membership in the European Union.”

Kos went on to discuss the absence of the EU flag at Serbia’s university student protests, which have been going on for nearly eight months.

“When I asked various representatives why the European flag is absent, I received approximately four answers. The first is: ‘Because you support Vucic.’ The second: ‘Because you bombed us,’ which, by the way, was done by NATO, not the EU. The third: ‘Because you demand that we recognize Kosovo,’ which the EU, of course, has not asked of Serbia. And the fourth is ‘Because we don’t want to alienate Russia.’ So the situation is complex,” Kos concluded.