At the session of the EU enlargement committee (KOELA), the representatives of Croatia presented a series of objections against Serbia.
Namely, the Croatian representatives had objections to cooperation in the area of war crimes, hate speech, and freedom of expression. Representatives of Bulgaria also had complaints on recent elections for national minority councils.
The Baltic countries, as well as Poland, were also critical of the need for greater harmonization of Serbia with the EU’s common foreign and security policy. Representatives of these countries also expressed concern about Russia’s influence in this area.
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The meeting was attended by the Head of the EU Delegation in Belgrade, Sem Fabrizi, who invited the member states to open new chapters together with Serbia. He also said that Serbia made progress in chapters 23 and 24 (judiciary and rule of law), and that Serbia joining the declarations in a common foreign and security policy was directly related to the national policy towards Kosovo.
Fabrizi also requested that the members in question had a greater understanding on this issue.
The meeting participants agreed that Serbia progressed the most in three chapters 9, 17 and 18, which concern financial services, economic and monetary policy and statistics. An intergovernmental conference, when these chapters could be opened, is scheduled for December 10th.
At the same time, the European Commission forwarded the non-paper to member states about the progress of Serbia in chapters 23 and 24 (judiciary and rule of law).
It states that Serbia has generally made some progress in legislative and institutional reforms in the country, including minority issues, asylum and anti-money laundering, but that it is late in achieving tangible results in certain areas, such as judicial reform, media freedom and fight against corruption.
(Vecernje Novosti, 16.11.2018)
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