On Monday 25 June, Serbia opened two new EU accession negotiation chapters – Chapter 13 on fisheries and Chapter 33 on financial and budgetary arrangements.
With the decision to open these two new chapters, 14 of 35 chapters have now been opened – two of which have been provisionally closed. The accession negotiations were launched in January 2014.
European Commissioner for Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn stated that the opening of additional chapters depended on the country's progress on the rule of law and the normalisation of relations with Kosovo.
Hahn underlined "the need to urgently accelerate the reform agenda, particularly as regards the rule of law". He also called on Serbia to reverse its current trend of non-alignment with EU visa policy.
Saying he had heard encouraging things on the rule of law of the Serbian party, Hahn added he hoped that new chapters would be opened in the second half of 2018. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)