kosovo-online.com<https://www.kosovo-online.com/en/news/politics/apostolovic-vucic-and-ramas-proposal-should-be-supported-eu-26-3-2026> Apostolovic: Vucic and Rama’s proposal should be supported in the EU 11–13 minutes ________________________________ Danijel Apostolovic, Serbia’s Ambassador to the European Union and head of the Operational Team for EU Accession, said today that the joint call by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama for accelerated integration of candidate countries into the EU single market and the Schengen area, without granting veto rights, is an excellent proposal and should be supported in the EU, adding that the position of European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos on this issue is inappropriate, RTV reports.
Apostolovic said that the statement by Marta Kos, who rejected the proposal by saying that “she is not sure whether Vucic and Rama know how much they need to achieve if they want to be part of Schengen”, is inappropriate given that the EU insists on gradual integration while candidate countries wait for full membership, and that this is her personal view, not the position of the European Commission. “She wanted to say that many things must be fulfilled for a country to become a member of Schengen, because Schengen used to come not with EU membership but after it. Nothing prevents us from intensively starting to meet the conditions at this stage, no one knows when other candidates and we will become members, the process is long. While we wait, why wouldn’t we integrate into the internal market, it is beneficial both for candidates and for the EU,” Apostolovic told TV K1. He pointed out that Marta Kos’s statement contradicts the Growth Plan and the aspirations of the EU and the new methodology that has been adopted, given that the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans represents gradual integration into various policies, primarily economic ones, Tanjug reported. He added that he has spoken with many ambassadors of EU member states in Brussels who liked the proposal by Vucic and Rama, and assessed that they might even be ready to support the idea. “What has gained traction, not from member states, is the European Commission’s proposal for so-called reverse membership, which has come to the agenda since the peace plan for Ukraine was leaked and potential membership for them in 2027 was mentioned. Reverse membership implies that you do not wait to meet all the necessary conditions and close all clusters, but that you become an EU member without veto rights, a commissioner, or decision-making in certain working groups, and then gradually, as you join certain segments, you gain voting rights in those working groups,” Apostolovic said. He also said that for him, this so-called reverse membership is a good idea because the very fact that a country is a member makes it more motivated to work faster and better and improve, adding that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic also stated that Serbia would be very much “in favor” of such a type of membership. He noted that EU membership has always been a political decision, given that in 2007, when Bulgaria and Romania became members, they had not fulfilled all conditions, but were under a cooperation and monitoring mechanism for 15 years and met benchmarks that Serbia is now fulfilling as a candidate country. “At the meeting where the idea of reverse membership initially failed, there was discussion about gradual integration, which received considerable support, and there was an idea to slightly modify the existing methodology in order to speed up the process and to replace unanimity in decisions on opening clusters with a qualified majority. I think that will be harder to pass, but it remains to be seen,” the Serbian Ambassador to the EU added. Apostolovic said that although Serbia has clearly shown that its path is toward the EU, there is still a lack of a strategic approach by the EU and member states toward Serbia, as well as a lack of understanding of the situation of candidate countries, since not every candidate can be viewed in the same way. He added that the European Commission and a large number of member states understand this, while some member states that are closer to Russia do not. Speaking about the Operational Team for EU Accession and what has been done in the 60 days since it was established, Apostolovic said that a lot has been done in just two months, adding that the team focused on key priorities such as preparing for the opening of the remaining clusters, cluster 2, cluster 5, and cluster 6, which is quite challenging because it relates to external relations. “Our focus is also on interim benchmarks in the area of the rule of law. This is a huge task, we have 91 interim benchmarks. Before opening these clusters, there are opening benchmarks for chapters 23 and 24, which we fulfilled at the beginning of the negotiations. They define interim benchmarks, which include the adoption of numerous important laws and substantial changes in the areas of the judiciary, the fight against corruption, and human rights,” he explained. He stressed that interim benchmarks are extremely important because once they are completed, it means we are halfway through the process, noting that under the new methodology, the closing of chapters cannot begin until interim benchmarks are completed. Apostolovic said that since the Operational Team for EU Accession was formed, its members meet every Monday at 12, and added that they also have numerous other meetings, and that the dynamics of relations with the European Commission on all these issues have been completely changed. “Kosovo, sanctions against Russia, the fight against corruption, rule of law, media freedom are key objections that are highlighted in the media, but there are really a lot of technical things that we need to do, and that is what the president said when forming this team. The Operational Team was formed with the aim of being truly operational. We have meetings every Monday at 12, where we solve problems,” he added. It is important that each ministry knows what it needs to do in order to avoid misunderstandings, he said, adding that the team’s focus is also on the reform agenda of the Growth Plan, where once certain steps are completed, funding is received from the EU. Responding to the question of why it was necessary to form the Operational Team, given that there is already a Ministry for European Integration, Apostolovic assessed that additional momentum was needed in this process, adding that this Operational Team replaced a large coordinating body with 60 members that did not meet. “We can also look for the reasons in the fact that for four and a half years we practically did not open anything in the accession negotiation process, that there was a decline in enthusiasm, that at one point it may have been clear to us that until we introduce sanctions against Russia, we will not move forward. Last year was challenging in every sense, now we should all make the most of the upcoming period because I see a willingness on our side to complete everything that concerns us,” he said. Apostolovic stated that when Serbia had absolute momentum for negotiations starting in 2012, there was considerable skepticism about enlargement in the EU, to the extent that the word enlargement was forbidden from appearing in EU documents, emphasizing that new momentum in the EU emerged at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, where Serbia is hindered by the fact that it has not introduced sanctions against Russia. Responding to the question of how much the NGO sector in Serbia is currently helping the Operational Team in the accession process, Apostolovic pointed out that the NGO sector practically withdrew from the accession negotiation process last year, and stressed that it is very important to establish much better communication and relations between the Operational Team, the Government, and the NGO sector, because without that Serbia will not be able to achieve more significant progress. As he stated, for the new media strategy that should be adopted by June, media and journalist associations have so far not responded to the invitation from the Ministry of Information, and without that, Serbia cannot move forward. “European integration, the accession negotiation process is a joint project of all of us. Ministries, agencies, and the state administration have great responsibility, but responsibility also lies with other actors, various associations, the NGO sector, and the prosecution,” he said. Referring to the draft annual report on Serbia prepared by the European Parliament’s rapporteur for Serbia, Tonino Picula, Apostolovic assessed that the draft is scandalous because he believes it is impossible that there is not a single positive thing in Serbia, adding that what is in the report are political messages of Members of the European Parliament belonging to different political groups. He added that Serbia can try, through parliamentary groups, to have them amend that draft resolution by providing them with facts. “As for the European Commission, their reports are factual. When it comes to negotiating chapters and the description of the political situation, they rely on reports of the EU delegation in Serbia, reports of member state embassies in Belgrade, NGOs, many international organizations, and they create a kind of compilation. We should openly discuss everything when they send that report, so that later we do not have to be critical of what is stated in it,” he said. Apostolovic said that European Commission reports on Serbia are largely factual and correspond to reality, since in the last five reports the Commission noted that Serbia has met the conditions and is ready to open cluster 3, but that it was the member states that did not agree due to Serbia’s insufficient alignment with the common foreign and security policy, namely because Serbia has not introduced sanctions against Russia. When asked what Serbia will have to do regarding the set of judicial laws adopted by the National Assembly at the end of January, given that the EU insists on suspending these amendments and urgently revising them, Apostolovic stated that the procedure is the key objection of the EU in this regard, because everything important for the process of European integration and accession negotiations must be consulted with the European Commission, especially what relates to the rule of law. “In this case, we should have obtained the opinion of the Venice Commission, and then sent it to the European Commission before sending the law for adoption in the National Assembly. We made a procedural mistake, the president said that this will not happen in the future. The second objection concerns a provision in this law related to the temporary assignment of prosecutors to the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime, which the Venice Commission also recommended,” Apostolovic explained. He said that Serbia should fulfill and complete everything within its control regarding the EU accession process while waiting for a more favorable geopolitical and political moment toward it, and to have all clusters ready, assessing that procedurally and bureaucratically, Serbia can complete everything by 2028 at the latest. -- http:www.antic.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SERBIAN NEWS NETWORK" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/senet/IA1PR84MB30364F43954918BA647D0B15AE57A%40IA1PR84MB3036.NAMPRD84.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.
