The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, considers so-called conditional membership of the European Union, without veto rights, to be acceptable, reports the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).
“EU membership without veto rights is acceptable for Serbia. The most important aspects for us are the single market, as well as the free movement of goods, people and capital. These are the key values we wish to realise through EU membership,” Vučić said on Monday in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Albania has already expressed its willingness to join the EU as a second-tier member, adds FAZ journalist Michael Martens.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama made this offer back in November, following talks with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
“Bring us into Europe and I am ready to sign an agreement that clearly states we do not seek veto rights,” Rama said in January.
Michael Martens assessed that the war in Ukraine is accelerating EU enlargement, but that the right of veto is becoming a key obstacle to further expansion. While Montenegro does not wish to join the EU without veto rights, Serbia would be prepared to do so.
As he noted, there is a serious obstacle that has nothing to do with the candidate countries, namely “the right of veto and the question of the EU’s functionality”, which, given the geopolitical situation, has become “more important than ever, as the EU is already frequently constrained by vetoes or threats of veto, often from Budapest, sometimes from Bratislava, Nicosia or other capitals”.
The German Federal Foreign Office maintains that Article 4 of the Treaty on European Union guarantees the equality of all Member States.
This view is shared by the EU Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos, who told FAZ that “the EU Treaties do not provide for second-class membership”.
However, in the Bundestag it is said that this could be circumvented by incorporating exceptions into individual accession treaties, Martens reports.
“Renouncing the right of veto may be a compromise to accelerate accession,” Adis Ahmetović, the SPD’s foreign policy spokesperson in the Bundestag, told FAZ.
The SPD is the party of former Chancellor Olaf Scholz and is currently the junior partner in Friedrich Merz’s governing coalition.
(Euronews, 18.02.2026)
https://www.euronews.rs/srbija/politika/211045/vucic-o-clanstvu-srbije-u-eu-bez-prava-veta/vest