More than Half of Serbs to Vote for Accession to EU

Jadranka Joksimovic (Beta/Milan Obradovic)

If a referendum were held tomorrow for Serbs to answer the question, "Do you support Serbia's accession to the European Union (EU)?", 54 percent of the citizens of Serbia would say "yes," 24 percent would be against it, and the rest would either refuse to vote, or wouldn't know how to answer," the Serbian minister in charge the country's EU accession, Jadranka Joksimovic, said on Jan. 22.

Speaking of the results of the latest opinion poll "European Orientation of the Citizens of Serbia," Joksimovic underlined that the most recent data showed that the trend of a slight 50-plus majority in favor of the EU accession continued, as the answers to the question had been nearly identical over the past two years.

Minister Joksimovic explained that the accession was one thing, and the ultimate goal another. "This may be a difficult, demanding, politically complicated journey, not always easy, but it is the ultimate goal that makes it worth travelling, and it should be your destination, where you think you should be."

"Support may be somewhat lower in terms of the process, but when you ask people if they are in favor of full membership, 54 percent of citizens say they absolutely support it," the minister said.

In the previous poll, published in the first half of 2019, 53 percent of respondents supported Serbia's EU accession.