Thewesternbalkans
Basic developments.
April 2008: The EU-Serbia Stabilisation and Association Agreement is signed and enters into force provisionally.
December 2009: Visa-free travel to Schengen area for citizens of Serbia; Serbia submits its application for EU membership.
March 2011: The EU-facilitated dialogue for the normalisation of relations between Belgrade and Pristina is launched.
March 2012: The European Council grants Serbia candidate status for EU membership.
September 2013: The Stabilisation and Association Agreement enters into force; the analytical examination of the acquis (“screening”) starts.
21 January 2014: The accession negotiations are formally opened at the first inter-governmental conference.
December 2015: Chapter 35 dealing with normalisation of relations between Serbia and Kosovo, is opened.
July 2016: ‘Rule of Law’ chapters 23 and 24 are opened.
December 2021: Opening of cluster 4 on Green agenda and sustainable connectivity (comprising of 4 negotiating chapters: chapter 14 – Transport policy, chapter 15 – Energy, chapter 21 – Trans-European networks, and chapter 27 – Environment and climate change).
To date, 22 out of 35 chapters have been opened (including all chapters under cluster 1 on the fundamentals of the process and cluster 4 on Green agenda and sustainable connectivity), two of which are provisionally closed.
In its Report on the state of play of the accession process with Serbia, issued on 8 of November 2023, the European Commission has pointed out following main conclusions:
“Political criteria. The Parliament constituted in August 2022 includes the opposition parties that boycotted the 2020 elections. However, political polarisation remained in evidence and has further deepened following the tragic mass shootings in early May.
Serbia still needs to address a number of long-standing recommendations by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE/ODIHR) and Council of Europe bodies concerning the electoral framework.”
Further efforts are needed to ensure systematic and genuine cooperation between the government and civil society.
Following the Report:
- Serbia is moderately prepared as regards public administration reform. On public financial management, action is still needed to fully implement the recommendation for a single mechanism for prioritising all investments regardless of type and source of financing”.
- Serbia has some level of preparation when it comes to itsjudicial system. Serbia took an important step towards strengthening the independence and accountability of the judiciary with the timely adoption of most of the implementing legislation giving practical effect to the 2022 constitutional amendments, while two of the implementing laws still need to be adopted: the Law on Judicial Academy and the Law on Seats and Territorial Jurisdiction of Courts.
- Serbia has some level of preparation in the fight against corruption. Overall, limited progress was made during the reporting period, including on last year’s recommendations. Steps have been taken that aimed at further implementing the recommendations of the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) in the area of prevention of corruption. There was a slight increase in the number of new investigations and final convictions in high-level corruption cases, but the number of new indictments fell. Serbia still needs to adopt a national anti-corruption strategy and the accompanying action plan. Serbia presented to the European Commission a draft strategy for the period 2021-2028 accompanied by a first action plan for the period 2023-2024. A majority of anti-corruption related interim benchmarks for Chapter 23 and a majority of GRECO recommendations from the 4th and 5th rounds of evaluation have been included in the documents.
- In the fight against organised crime, Serbia has some level of preparation. Limited progress was made in addressing last year’s recommendations, in particular on detection and prevention of migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings. A slight increase in financial investigations and confiscation of assets can also be noted in 2022. The number of new investigations and indictments increased. Proactive criminal investigations and the systematic tracking of money flows, especially in cases of inexplicable wealth, are still not common practice. However, the understanding and the investigation approach has improved, and police, prosecutors and criminal judges are aware of the importance of consistently applying a ‘follow the money to find the crime’ approach and using circumstantial evidence. There is well-established cooperation with CEPOL, Eurojust, Europol and INTERPOL, notably on weapons trafficking, drugs trafficking, and the fight against high-profile organised crime groups. Serbia needs to further increase the technical, financial and human resources capacity of the Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime to perform its duties in an independent manner.
The European Commission has outlined that regarding freedom of expression, limited progress was made in the reporting period. Serbia continued implementing the action plan of the media strategy.
An important step was taken with respect to the application of criteria aligned with the EU acquis to the assessment of state aid, while it should be clarified that antitrust and merger control rules apply to the media sector and safeguards to protect media pluralism and editorial independence remain to be improved. Serbia needs to take urgent action to counter anti-EU narratives propagated by numerous media outlets, and to counter foreign information manipulation and interference, most notably in the context of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
The EC thinks that “on the economic criteria, Serbia is at a good level of preparation and has made some progress in developing a functioning market economy. After a strong rebound in 2021 from the contraction induced by COVID-19, the Serbian economy decelerated substantially in 2022, impacted by the economic fallout from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, in particular as regards rising inflation via soaring energy and food prices. Consumer price inflation surged in 2022 and continued to rise in early 2023, which led the central bank to steadily tighten its policy stance. Progress has also been made as regards the adoption of new fiscal rules. Banking sector stability was maintained, and lending growth decelerated substantially. High inflation helped improve the budget balance in 2022, despite substantial capital transfers to state-owned energy utilities and further ad hoc support measures. Major structural reforms of public administration and of the governance of state-owned enterprises continued to advance slowly. The state retains a strong footprint in the economy; the private sector is underdeveloped and hampered by weaknesses in the rule of law, in particular corruption and judicial inefficiency, and in the enforcement of fair competition”.
Serbia is moderately prepared and has made some progressin coping with competitive pressure and market forces within the EU. The structure of the economy improved further and economic integration with the EU remained high. Public investment remained at a high level with the aim to address serious infrastructure gaps after years of underinvestment. Small and medium-sized enterprises still face a number of challenges, including an uneven playing field as compared with large companies and foreign investors.
On good neighbourly relations and regional cooperation, Serbia remained committed overall to maintaining good bilateral relations with other candidate countries, potential candidates and neighbouring EU Member States. Relations with Croatia improved. Relations with Hungary have further intensified. In general, Serbia actively participates in regional cooperation.
Overall, Serbia has remained engaged in the EU-facilitated Dialogue on the normalisation of relations with Kosovo, but it needs to demonstrate more serious commitment, invest more efforts, and make compromises to take the process of normalisation of relations with Kosovo forward. Serbia needs to uphold its Dialogue commitments and commit to the full implementation of all past Dialogue agreements and the Agreement on the Path to Normalisation and its Implementation Annex. Serbia and Kosovo are expected to engage more constructively to enable negotiations on the comprehensive legally binding normalisation Agreement to start and show flexibility in order to make rapid and concrete progress. Normalisation of relations is an essential condition on the European path of both Parties and both risk losing important opportunities in the absence of progress.
Regarding Serbia’s ability to assume the obligations of EU membership,the country continued the work on alignment with the EU acquis in several areas.
The internal marketcluster is key for Serbia’s preparations for the requirements of the EU internal market and is of high relevance for early integration and the development of the Common Regional Market. The competitiveness and inclusive growth cluster has significant links to Serbia’s Economic Reform Programme and is technically ready to be opened. Serbia continued to make progress in all areas under this cluster, particularly through further legislative alignment with the EUacquisas well as with a new law on the management of state-owned enterprises.
The Green agenda and sustainable connectivity cluster is at the heart of the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans and closely linked to Serbia’s Economic Reform Programme and the Commission’s Economic and Investment Plan.
The cluster on resources, agriculture and cohesioncomprises policies linked to EU structural funds and to developing capacity to assume the responsibilities of a future Member State. It also comprises some of the key policy areas crucial for ensuring sustainable food systems and helping rural communities to develop and diversify economically.
On migration,Serbia contributed to the management of the mixed migration flows towards the EU and cooperated with the EU, EU Member States and its neighbours to implement the EU Action Plan on the Western Balkans presented by the Commission in December 2022. On theexternal relationscluster, Serbia is yet to finalise its accession to the World Trade Organisation which is one of the opening benchmarks for Chapter 30. Serbia should also abstain from introducing unilateral trade-restrictive measures without prior consultation of the Commission, in line with its obligations under the Stabilisation and Association Agreement.
Serbia continued not to align with EU restrictive measures against Russia and the majority of declarations by the High Representative on behalf of the EU on this matter. Serbia’s alignment rate with relevant High Representative statements on behalf of the EU and Council Decisions was at 46% in 2022 and 51 % in August 2023; some actions and statements by Serbia went against EU foreign policy positions. Serbia is expected to improve, as a matter of priority, its alignment with the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, including with EU restrictive measures, and refrain from actions that go against EU positions on foreign policy.
Comment: Serbia is the leading country in the Western Balkans in terms of the European integration of the region. The EEuropean Comission report is essentially politically neutral, and free from geopolitical burdens. It is of particular importance that Serbia has allocated considerable administrative resources, as well as political will, to implement the recommendations of the EC and carry out reforms that would allow for a successful conclusion of the substantive negotiations. It is clear that there are two main problems in the integration of Serbia in the EU – the normalisation of relations with Kosovo and the reluctance of Belgrade to take an anti-Russian position. Added to these problems was the conclusion of a Free Trade Agreement with China, which conflicts with the commitments undertaken by Serbia in the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU.
