"Serbia is about to open accession negotiations EU, 21. 1. 2014. promised that she would be ready for membership until the end of 2018. This meant that by the end of 2018, all internal reforms should be completed, and above all, chapters 23 and 24, which concern the rule of law, that is, the independence of the judiciary, the fight against corruption, the fight against organized crime, freedom of speech, as well as issues of other basic human freedoms and civil rights. Then, on behalf of Serbia, Prime Minister Ivica Dacic and First Vice President Aleksandar Vucic made this promise. The promise was not made lightly at that moment, and this is supported by the fact that the European Commission itself, in its Opinion on Serbia's request for membership in 2011, assessed that Serbia, if it uses all its capacities, can be ready for membership within five years. A full 12 years have passed since that promise", says Vladimir Medjak.
"WEATHER" Where is Serbia today??
VLADIMIR MEDJAK: After 12 years, we have opened 22 out of 35 chapters and closed only two (25 Science and Research and 26 Education and Culture). In the key chapters, 23 Judiciary (fight against corruption) and fundamental rights and 24 Justice, freedom and security, in 2016 we received so-called transitional benchmarks that we have not yet fulfilled. Meeting these benchmarks is a formal condition for the closure of all other chapters, and lack of progress in them may lead to the halt of the entire negotiations. Precisely because of this deficiency, Serbia has not moved forward in the negotiations since 2021, that is, it has not opened any other chapter/cluster.
Serbia in 2024. committed to be ready for membership.
In his immense paper In 2024, the Republic of Serbia again pledged to be ready for membership, this time by the end of 2027, only to shorten the deadline three months later to December 2026. Today, in June 2026, due to a lack of progress, Serbia risks losing around 350 million euros that the EU made available to it from the Growth Plan, and the European Parliament is questioning whether the already closed chapters 25 and 26 should be reopened due to government pressure on universities.
What we must know is that the condition of all conditions for integration, in the words of Andrew Moravcik, is "the compatibility of political elites and their interests." In order to understand why the situation in our integration process is like that, we must see where the current political elite has brought Serbia according to the key criteria for assessing readiness for membership - the state of democracy, the fight against corruption, organized crime and freedom of speech.
Freedom House does not have a high opinion of the state of democracy in Serbia?
And not only that organization, which does not consider Serbia a democratic country since 2019. According to Transparency International's corruption perception index, Serbia is today 116th out of 183 observed countries, in the company of Panama and Thailand (in 2013, Serbia was 72nd on the same scale). The lowest placed EU members, Hungary and Bulgaria, are in 84th place. We can compare it with another candidate country, Moldova, which joined the process later, but has a clear pro-European direction, and it is today 80th in that ranking, and in 2016 it was 123rd. According to the report Reporters Without Borders who evaluate Media Freedom Index, in 2014, Serbia was in 54th place out of 180 countries, in a group with most of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In 2026, Serbia is in 104th place ("difficult situation" rating) in the society of Central African countries. On the ladder Rule of Law Index a, in 2026, Serbia is in 96th place (between Colombia and the Philippines) out of 143 observed countries. The lowest placed EU member, Hungary, is in 75th place, while Montenegro is in 55th place. According to Global Organized Crime Index u, Serbia had the fourth most organized organized crime in Europe in 2025, out of 44 observed countries. It is actually an improvement because in 2021 it had the second most organized organized crime in Europe.
I mentioned these four indicators because it is for these four areas that the European Commission assesses Serbia's readiness every year in the Political Criteria for EU membership (which is also key to the current wave of enlargement). The average grade of Serbia in the four parameters evaluated by the Commission is 2,2 on a scale of 1-5. The parameters are the independence of the judiciary, the fight against corruption, the fight against organized crime and freedom of expression. A country is ready for membership when it reaches a score of 4.
According to those estimates, the question is whether the regime even wants to enter the European Union?
An additional problem is the issue of "Serbia's strategic orientation". This means taking the EU's side in global turmoil, which is demonstrated by the introduction of sanctions against Russia and full alignment with the EU's foreign policy positions (Chapter 31).
The indicators according to these parameters clearly indicate with whom the political elite in Serbia is compatible and that it is not the EU at all, but mainly the countries of Central Asia and Africa. From this arise all the problems of meeting the criteria for membership and answers to the questions "whether" and "when" Serbia will enter the EU. From this comes the answer to the constant question (which torments some observers) "is Serbia at a crossroads and will it decide to join the EU?". The answer is clear, with SNS, Serbia can never join the EU. Serbia is not at a crossroads, because the "elite" in Serbia decided a long time ago that it does not want to join the EU. The political elite is aware that even if they wanted to, they would not be able to because it is necessary to completely change and essentially dismantle the system they built themselves. For the current political elite in Serbia, the essential (not paperwork) fulfillment of membership criteria and their implementation, that is, behavior in accordance with them, means a certain loss of power. The loss of power would mean the beginning of a real state fight against corruption, in which the acquired privileges would be threatened.
We are in Tivat., recently, again heard the conditions for joining the EU.
In Tivat, we heard four conditions for continuation of negotiations with Serbia: 1) restoring the judiciary to the state before the "Mrdić Laws" (from January 2026) enacted to prevent the fight against high corruption, 2) holding free elections by adopting all ODIHR's recommendations (mostly from 2023/2024), 3) forming the REM Council (not working since November 2024) and 4) ending the balancing between the EU and Russia and China (a problem since 2022). The last condition essentially means imposing sanctions on Russia and lowering the level of relations with China, since the EU clearly treats these two countries differently. Serbia strongly turned to China by signing various political declarations, according to which Serbia and China share the same vision of the world. That vision of the world is not the vision of the EU, and the values of the Communist Party of China are even less compatible with EU membership, which Miloš Vučević stated that the SNS shares. Serbia applied for EU membership by declaring that shares EU values. You cannot share the values of the EU and the Chinese Communist Party at the same time.
When you look at these requests, you can clearly see that they are all the result of the work of this government from 2022 onwards. Even if the aforementioned laws are changed, the government will not stop acting contrary to the ideas that those laws carry. Additionally, apart from the imposition of sanctions on Russia, solving the other three issues would only return us to some initial state of 2023, where one might naively hope that we might have free elections, media and the fight against corruption. Naivety lies in the expectation that the problem will be solved by those who created it, which indicates that faking is being planned. The problems with the rule of law in Serbia started in 2017/2018, long before the "Mrdić Laws" or the parliamentary elections in 2023, so solving the "Mrdić Laws" will not solve the source of the problem.
What, in this and such a context, means "continuation of negotiations with Serbia"?
When we say "continuation of negotiations" with Serbia, we must keep in mind that there are two options for that - one is essential, and the other is cosmetic. The first, essential, is the fulfillment of the transitional criteria for chapters 23 and 24. They were defined in 2016, and one of the key ones is for Serbia to ensure the independence of the judiciary. For this reason, the Constitution was amended in 2022. However, this did not lead to the fulfillment of these criteria because the criteria are considered fulfilled only when it is shown that there is an effective fight against high corruption, which is proven by judgments and confiscation of assets acquired through corruption (since the amendment of the Constitution, Serbia has fallen 20 places on the world corruption scale). The "Mrdić Laws" were passed precisely with the aim of preventing that. The problem is that even before the "Mrdić Laws", Serbia had nothing to brag about. Starting a real fight against high corruption would lead to the fulfillment of these criteria, Serbia would receive an IBAR (report on the fulfillment of these criteria), after which it would receive a Roadmap for closing the negotiations. Montenegro received the IBAR in June 2024, and the Road Map in September 2024. Albania received the IBAR in May 2026, but has not yet received the Road Map. The problem is that none of the EU representatives even mentioned that Serbia can get IBAR, which means that it is not on the table.
Additionally, if Serbia imposes sanctions on Russia, it would let everyone in the EU know that it is sincere in its decision. This, of course, is provided that Serbia does not replace Russia with China in its intentions to compensate for giving up EU membership by looking for "sponsors" among countries where the rule of law is not on the list of priorities, but which can provide financial stability to an undemocratic regime. This goal is clearly visible in the foreign policy of today's Serbia and its relations with China and increasingly the USA.
That would, therefore, was an attempt at an essential solution. But from that, it seems, There is nothing?
Forcing this essential option would allow Serbia to actually take advantage of the offer that the EU made in Tivat (German-French immense paper) in the form of obtaining the advantages of membership before formal entry into the EU. To take advantage of any benefits from this package, Serbia must either meet the transitional criteria in Chapters 23 and 24 and/or close Chapter 31, that is, impose sanctions on Russia. Without these two conditions, Serbia has nothing to offer from Tivat.
Another option (which is on the table), which 10 years ago would have been essential, and today is only cosmetic, would be the opening of cluster 3 - Competitiveness and inclusive growth, in which only three chapters (10, 16 and 19) are unopened. The opening of these chapters would not systematically move Serbia towards EU membership because we would still not be in the same category as Montenegro and Albania. However, this would give the regime the opportunity to say that the process is not dead and that this government can (although it is not known how) bring Serbia into the EU. This would also not lead to the use of benefits from the Tivat offer.
Why some actors in the EU still have "loose" approach towards Serbia?
The reasons are different, from the inertia of working according to the previously established model where Aleksandar Vučić is a "stability factor in the region" or "the only pro-European option in Serbia" (since spreading anti-European propaganda and burning the flag of the European Union are solid proof of pro-European politics?!), through loyalty to a party friend from the European People's Party, to good bilateral relations, both economic (investments, purchase of equipment, concessions) and political and personal. The problem is that none of those reasons is essentially a justification for such behavior, which, in addition to harming Serbia, harms the EU itself, especially its reputation in Serbia, and directly affects the attitude of Serbian citizens towards the EU.
photo: milica vucković / fonet...
When the same experiment is constantly repeated, under the same conditions and with the same result Isn't that a waste of time??
The enlargement of the EU is an indicator of its vitality and ability to solve problems. The Balkans are part of Europe, there are countries in the Balkans that want to become members of the EU. The problem is that if the EU wants to be a geopolitical player, which it must become for its security and place in a turbulent world, it must demonstrate that it is capable of integrating the Balkans. The EU cannot play a global role, or perhaps even a role in the wider region, if it does not show that it can project its values and its influence. Now this is only possible in the Balkans, Moldova and Ukraine. The position of a global player brings a price that must be paid, because noblesse obligation: if you want to play with the big ones, you have to act like it. This means that internal problems, possible referendums, difficulties regarding the reforms of the functioning of the EU, cannot be an excuse for anything. The global arena is not interested in that. You also cannot compromise on your core values and goals. Enlargement is a security issue for the EU. The largest country in the Balkans is Serbia, and without Serbia's involvement in the process, there will remain a "hole in the carpet" of Europe, which will hurt the EU itself quite a bit. The policy of Serbia under the SNS is on a direct collision course with the policy of enlargement. Therefore, if the EU wants to be taken seriously, it is time for some of its actors to accept that they bet on the wrong player in Serbia for 14 years and write off that loss of invested time and political capital. The EU will not and should not stop negotiations with Serbia. However, one has to be clear about the government in Serbia, which is anything but pro-European. It is time for them to start advocating membership in the EU, but for "democratic Serbia", which other actors in the EU have been doing for a long time. That write-off of the loss and the search for an alternative in today's majority of Serbia, which is against the government, would allow them to find an interlocutor in the next government in Serbia after the SNS, to improve their reputation (some may even regain it), and some could find new members for their pan-European party groupings, to replace the old and spent ones, like the European People's Party.
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