Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić appears to perceive the European Union as a “buffet table,” choosing only interlocutors that suit him, while viewing critics from that same EU as conspirators, said the European Parliament’s rapporteur for Serbia, Tonino Picula.
In an opinion piece for the weekly Radar, Picula stated that this approach is not new, arguing that Vučić acts similarly toward political rivals and Serbian citizens.
He assessed that Serbian society is in constant turmoil and that meetings of the European Parliament’s ad hoc mission in Belgrade at the end of January “revealed a trend” of accelerating financial, administrative, and physical repression against those supporting the student movement. According to him, the rule of law is declining and media outlets are facing increasing pressure, reports N1, as cited by KosovaPress.
Picula recalled that Serbia has not opened a single new negotiation chapter in four years, indicating that the accession process is effectively stagnating.
“Given the extent to which geopolitical circumstances have changed, that enlargement policy has returned as one of the EU’s priorities, that the circle of candidate countries has expanded, and that some other countries are progressing faster in negotiations, Serbia is in fact moving backward,” he stated.
Picula further noted that among all post-socialist countries that joined the EU since 2004, none has faced the consequences of so many catastrophic decisions from its recent past as Serbia.
