Keepin touch

Whether you have a question, comment, suggestion or any problem in the purview of the government, send us your message and we will try to respond as soon as possible. If your problem is not in our purview, we will forward your message to the relevant institution.

The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Revitalising EU enlargement policy

Belgrade/Budapest, 9 March 2023

First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic said today that it is necessary to revitalise the European Union's enlargement policy with the idea that a country should become a member based on the criteria that have been set.

Addressing the Ministerial Panel, as part of the Balkan Forum in Budapest, Dacic emphasised that we now have a crisis of criteria for entering the EU, recalling that 20 years have passed since the Union summit in Thessaloniki, when promises about European integration of the Western Balkans first came.

We are aware of the internal over-composition of the Union at this moment, but it has given a promise that the next member will come from the Western Balkans. We have heard many stories that we are high on the priority list, but fatigue is obvious, the First Deputy Prime Minister said.

He pointed out that the EU states are wondering whether new members would contribute to its strengthening, while at the same time we are wondering whether legal harmonisation with the Union makes sense, if progress is stable and does not depend on the criteria that have been set.

Dacic cited the example of North Macedonia, which changed its name due to the European perspective, so nothing happened, except for the appearance of a new condition.

The First Deputy Prime Minister reminded that he signed the Brussels Agreement ten years ago and that many things from that document were not fulfilled, adding that the EU can be a unifying factor in the Western Balkans, but given the current situation, no one in the Union can guarantee anything.

He warned that we can reach a moment when it will not be important, because currently the majority of citizens do not want the membership of our country in the Union, which happened in Serbia for the first time.

After the Balkan Forum, in which the ministers of foreign affairs of Hungary, Albania and North Macedonia also participated, the head of Serbian diplomacy said in a statement to journalists that there is no region in Europe that wants to enter the European Union more than the Western Balkans, expressing the hope that the same the Union also wants it.

According to him, the issue of migrants was also discussed at this meeting in Budapest, with the assessment that there is no unified EU policy in this regard, that is, the Union does not have a unified approach, which results in poor border defense.

Stating that the war in Ukraine is the number one topic in the world, Dacic pointed out that he compared it to the issue of our sovereignty, noting that there is a crisis of the international order in the sense that once the principles are violated, then any great power can interpret the principles own way, which leads to the meaninglessness of institutions.