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

Serbia will fight for its EU candidacy to be approved

Belgrade/Washington, 9 October 2010

Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration and Minister of Science and Technological Development Bozidar Djelic stated today that Belgrade will fight for Serbia’s EU candidacy to be approved at the 25 October session of the European Council.

Author: euractiv.rs

Djelic who is heading a Serbian delegation at the annual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington pointed out in an interview to Internet portal Euractiv Srbija that 26 out of 27 EU countries wish that Serbia’s candidacy be forwarded to the European Commission for examination at the meeting in Luxembourg on 25 October.

The Deputy Prime Minister pointed to a very clear stance of the Netherlands which puts one condition for accepting Serbia’s candidacy, and that is the arrest and extradition of General Ratko Mladic to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

The European Council should decide at its session on 25 October whether to forward Serbia’s candidacy to the European Commission. In case the Council decides to do so, the European Commission should send the Questionnaire to Serbia within two or three weeks in order to assess the level of fulfilment of reforms in Serbia.

Djelic underlined that it is well known that most of the questions have already been answered based on the model of the questionnaires sent to other countries and added that Serbia will provide the best answers and return the Questionnaire in record time.

Speaking about EU membership, the Deputy Prime Minister said that it is technically possible for Serbia to become an EU member in 2016, but only if it resolves the status of Kosovo-Metohija and completes its cooperation with the ICTY.

Commenting on how the upcoming negotiations on Kosovo-Metohija will affect the process of European integration, he emphasised that it has been made clear to European partners that Serbia’s progress towards the EU cannot be as a condition of the deadlines and results of these negotiations.