“As the prerequisites for accession to the European Union are becoming stricter, the number of Serbian citizens who oppose membership has been going up,” says President Aleksandar Vučić. However, he reiterates that Serbia remains on the EU path because Serbia must conduct its policies according to its best interests.
The legally non-binding resolution of the European Parliament recommends that Serbia, among other things, should join the Union’s sanctions against Russia. The position expressed in the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee is not new. “They did not open Chapter 31 (Foreign Security, Defence Policy) for us because they said we were not ready for it, and today they are asking us to 100% respect that policy for which they did not even open the chapter for Serbia,” said Aleksandar Vučić, President of Serbia.
“We respect international law, which the whole world adheres to. Territorial integrity has become a beloved phrase of Western politicians. I am just repeating what they are saying. They are supporting the territorial integrity of Ukraine with a lot of fervour. I support the territorial integrity of Serbia, but with a much calmer voice and with equal determination,” Vučić says.
According to Serbian Broadcasting Corporation (RTS), the submitted report states that the final agreement between Belgrade and Pristina should be based on mutual recognition.
“We heard this from German Chancellor Scholz. There is a full normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina in the official negotiating framework, but nowhere do we talk about mutual recognition,” Vučić added.
Increasingly fewer people in Serbia believe that the country will join the EU, while the population’s support for the accession continues to fall. Reasons for this are the increasing pressure from Brussels and a slower and longer road to the accession.
A conference on the European future of Serbia and other Western Balkan countries will be held at the end of June which will also mark the end of France’s six-month presidency of the Union.
(Danas, 15.06.2022)
https://www.danas.rs/vesti/politika/zasto-u-srbiji-raste-evroskepticizam/
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