Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said on Thursday 16 November that she hoped her country would be able to open “three or four” negotiating chapters on her country’s accession to the EU.
“I expect three or four chapters” of the five on which the country has submitted its position “will be opened” “in December”, she said after the EU-Serbia Stabilisation and Association Council. The five chapters are those on company law (6), financial services (9), fisheries (13), external relations (30) and financial and budgetary provisions (33). Serbia has already opened ten chapters and provisionally closed two. The prime minister made clear that the EU membership was her country’s main objective.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini praised the efforts made by the government on reforms in all sectors, including the rule of law. In its statement, the Stabilisation and Association Council encourages Belgrade to step up its reform programme and to place the emphasis on effective implementation and monitoring reform in the areas of the rule of law, fundamental rights, the independence of democratic institutions, public administration, developing a working market economy and improving the business environment.
The high representative and the commissioner for enlargement negotiations, Johannes Hahn, welcomed the internal dialogue launched in Serbia on Kosovo (see EUROPE 11864). “The internal dialogue … is very important” and is “also crucial for the European Union perspective of the two sides”, and Mogherini said. Hahn said that decision to set up a dialogue was “very courageous”. Brnabic stress that it was important that this dialogue, which has already begun, brings together all the political, social and economic players so that a joint position can be agreed.
The council underlines the need for Belgrade and Pristina to work together on a new phase of the dialogue and stresses the importance of implementing the agreements already made.
The previous day, High Representative Mogherini met Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to discuss these issues among other matters. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)