In the evening of Monday 11 December, Serbia opened two new EU accession negotiating chapters.
The chapters in question are chapter 6 on company law and chapter 30 on foreign relations. Enlargement Negotiations Commissioner Johannes Hahn said that the latter chapter covered foreign trade policy.
With these two chapters, Serbia has opened 12 in total, six of which have now been provisionally closed. In a press release, the Council says that other accession conferences will be planned as necessary in order to move the process forward in the first half of 2018.
Serbian European integration minister Jadranka Joksimović made semi-veiled comments about the opening of the two chapters while five are being prepared. She said she was not totally satisfied but the dynamic was present and added that the reform process in Serbia needed to be more dynamic and move at a faster pace.
Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Mikser said that the opening of the three other chapters, chapter 9 on financial services 13 on fisheries and 3 on the budget, were within reach.
Hahn said that the accession conference was the third in the year 2017, which demonstrated the serious nature of the work undertaken in Serbia, whose prospects for joining the EU were firm and real. He said however that further progress depended on the rule of law and normalisation of relations with Kosovo. The Commissioner underscored the importance of the independence of the judiciary, freedom of the press, the fight against corruption and organised crime, particularly money-laundering and minority rights. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)