EURACTIV SERBIA PANEL IN BRUSSELS, Prime Minister Brnabić: "Serbia has a place in the European Union"

The media platform EURACTIV Serbia has organized a panel discussion called "Yes, but...": The vision of Serbia’s future in the EU".

The panel is dedicated to the topic of the EU enlargement process and will try to answer the following questions – How far has Serbia progressed on the road to EU membership?, Why is there always a "Yes, but"? and What is next in Serbia's accession to the EU?

Today's panel discussion was opened by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia, Ana Brnabić. After the introductory presentation, she participated in the segment called "Euractive Talks".

The Serbian Prime Minister spoke one-on-one with Euractiv's journalist, Brian Maguire, after which a panel discussion began with the following participants - Tanja Miščević, the Serbian Minister for European Integration, Gert Jan Koopman, Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) and Vladimir Bilčik, MEP and EP’s rapporteur for Serbia.

In the introductory part, the Prime Minister of Serbia, Ana Brnabić pointed out that before the actual discussion, she had a series of conversations about the European integration process throughout the day.

"I am very pleased to be here, the day was great, I had meetings with the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, the European Union Commissioner for Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement, Oliver Varhelyi, the European Union Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen and with the Vice President of the European Commission, Maroš Šefčovič. The European Union, that is the EU accession, is Serbia's first strategic priority. It has been a long, difficult and often frustrating process both for us and for the EU and its Member States. This year, we are celebrating 10 years since the accession process began, in 2013, when the decision to start accession negotiations with Serbia was made. Meanwhile, I became a prime minister at the end of June 2017. I had three programmes for the government and in each of my exposés, I mentioned that Serbia’s strategic priority was its accession to the EU..

Accession negotiations, mechanisms and techniques have changed twice in the meantime", said the Prime Minister.

"We had 35, opened 22 and closed 2 chapters, so far. France recommended a new methodology, which we adopted, so we started talking about clusters, in order to make it easier for our citizens to understand what is being negotiated and what is being done. Now, we have 6 clusters in total. We have two open clusters and we hope for one more by the year-end. This is a technically complex job," PM Brnabić pointed out.

She also underlined that she views the accession process in terms of three key pillars, namely state administration reforms, the rule of law and the economy.

"In this way, we are reforming our society and implementing European standards. Serbia has made the biggest progress in terms of the third pillar - the economy. We have done a lot in that segment. Public debt now stands at 54 percent of GDP, while unemployment is below 9 percent. Wages in Serbia are slowly reaching those in some EU countries and in this respect, we have carried out a lot of reforms and made a lot of progress. In terms of state administration and its transparency and efficiency, in the past seven years, we have also achieved a lot, but we have more reforms ahead of us. We launched the E-governance platform and with transparency, we are also fighting against corruption. In terms of the rule of law, we have more reforms ahead of us. What we still need to do is to fully implement the media platform and there is also the fight for basic values, human rights, the position of minorities... We changed the Constitution and with the help of the EU and the Venice Commission, we changed a set of judicial laws. It is up to the judiciary to now show that they are at the service of citizens and that they are effective," said the Prime Minister.

In her introductory presentation, she further highlighted two key things that Serbia must achieve - long-term stabilization in the relations with Pristina, that is, an agreement on the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina.

"This is the most complex thing we have to do. We have had constant tensions, instability and various provocations. However, our Government is trying to maintain peace and stability. Another thing is aligning with the EU's foreign and security policy. I am talking about the issue of sanctions against the Russian Federation", she clarified and added:

"We are pushing the envelope all the time. Generally speaking, if you want to join a club, the club sets rules that must be followed. The only option for Serbia’s sustainable and prosperous future is to join the EU. The European Union is our biggest partner, we are a part European family of nations and that's where we belong and that's the best path for Serbia.

The changes we are implementing are good for our society, our citizens and our companies. They are also beneficial for society in general, not only in the context of the EU accession. I hope that we will not have to wait another ten years and that sooner or later we will join the EU because that is where we belong."

(Kurir.rs/Euractiv)