On Thursday 26 October in Brussels, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić said that the timetable announced by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, for EU enlargement by 2030 was “very optimistic” (see EUROPE 13237/8). She also felt that the EU should reform itself internally to prepare for the integration of new Member States.
“The EU must carry out internal reforms to be ready for enlargement. If I were a Member State, I’m not sure I’d be in favour of enlargement. For the Member States, it doesn’t make much sense, with one Commissioner per country, bureaucracy, it’s not tenable. By 2030, the EU must reform, and that would be the best signal to show that the EU is ready”, she declared.
“Enlargement is back on the agenda in a big way, but I don’t think it will happen in 2030, that’s very optimistic”, she said, adding that she believed her country could be “ready” by then.
However, Belgrade still has a number of issues to resolve before it can join the EU, starting with its relationship with its Kosovar neighbour. Already complicated, the situation has become considerably more tense since 24 September, when a Kosovar policeman was killed by a group of armed Serbian men (see EUROPE 13257/21).
While deploring the incident, the Prime Minister nevertheless felt that the responsibility for the poor relations between Belgrade and Pristina lay partly with the Kosovan Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, and the implementation of the 2013 Brussels Agreement, which included, among other things, the creation of the association of Serb-majority municipalities in Kosovo.
“During the meetings that Mr Vučić will have today (in the margins of the summit, see other news, Editor’s note) (see EUROPE 13279/4), we will show that we are always ready for dialogue. Pristina was more reticent. The old agreements must be implemented. At this time, there is still no association of municipalities and Mr Kurti says that the agreement does not exist for him”, she said.
The association of municipalities was made a priority by Belgrade at the last meeting in Brussels on 14 September between Aleksandar Vučić and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell. On the same day, the Kosovar Prime Minister said that recognition of official Kosovar documents and other national symbols should take precedence over everything else. The meetings, conducted separately, did not produce any results (see EUROPE 13251/4).
Since the Brussels agreement, other texts have emerged, such as the Ohrid agreements, which the two countries agreed to verbally, but have still not formally signed since 27 February 2023. The text should make it possible to normalise relations between Serbia and Kosovo, but the Prime Minister will not budge: “The Ohrid Agreement, yes, but the first point of the text stresses that all previous agreements must be implemented”, including, in her view, the Brussels agreements. (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)