Minister Starović Believes Serbia to Open Cluster 3 in September

Nemanja Starovic (BETAPHOTO/MILAN ILIC)

The Serbian minister in charge of Serbia’s EU accession, Nemanja Starović, stated on July 21 that Serbia was working on fulfilling additional obligations in order to open Cluster 3 in the near future, expecting it to be opened in September.

In an interview with Prva TV, Starovic said that the government was confident it would be able to meet the obligations by the end of July, but due to obstructions it faced, that was not feasible. To mention a few, he cited the selection of members of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) and the fact that European institutions did not operate in August.

The minister said that Cluster 3 was important to Serbia symbolically, noting that although Serbia had paved its European path and the European Commission had given the green light to open this cluster as far back as December 2021, there had been no formal progress for three and a half years.

Starovic stated that he had had several conversations with EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos, acknowledging that criticism by Brussels might be justified to a degree, but emphasized that it was important for Serbia to have “truly good, daily working cooperation with colleagues from the EU”, and that its progress was monitored properly. He also said that it was significant that Marta Kos had recognized the importance of adopting the three media laws.

Minister for European Integration Starovic said that Serbia was now to elect members of the REM Council and adopt a new voter register act, which had been agreed with with the European Commission and the OSCE’s ODIHR mission. He added that the government had achieved certain results on the European path in its first hundred days that should not be overlooked.