Brnabic: EU enlargement process not based on merit, but on politics

BRUSSELS - Serbian Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic on Thursday strongly condemned the narrative that the EU enlargement process was merit-based, and noted that, four years ago, Serbia had met all conditions for opening Cluster 3 in its accession talks and that she did not know how to explain to citizens why the cluster had not been opened yet.

Speaking at an EU-Western Balkans conference, hosted in Brussels by the Friends of Europe think tank, Brnabic said the enlargement process was based on politics rather than on merit, but noted that her criticism was not directed at the European Commission.

She said Serbia was fully aligned with EU values and noted that taking some bilateral disputes to the EU would help to resolve them.

She added that the enlargement process "should be merit-based, but it is not."

"It is politically based and politically governed. It is almost humiliating when someone keeps repeating that it is a merit-based process," Brnabic said.

Brnabic noted that Serbia had opened its last cluster in the EU talks in December 2021 - when she was PM - and that, at the time, Serbia had been due to open not one, but two clusters - Cluster 3 and Cluster 4 - at an inter-governmental conference.

"And we were told: 'Let's not do two (clusters) at the same time. Let's now have Cluster 4, and the next intergovernmental conference will be held in June or July next year (2022) to open Cluster 3, because you have met all conditions.' And you know what happened? The war in Ukraine broke out, things changed," Brnabic said.

She noted that Cluster 3 had still not been opened although four consecutive European Commission reports had called on EU member states to open the cluster with Serbia.

"But they do not want that. So, it is not quite merit-based, but politically governed. And it needs to be put that way because people are not stupid," Brnabic said.

She added that Serbia was fully aligned with the EU in terms of values, and noted that Serbia had condemned "the invasion (on Ukraine) as an act of aggression" and declared that it was a violation of international law, as well as that, together with the EU, it had voted in favour of ousting Russia from the UN Human Rights Council and that it had been the first to say it would not accept the results of referendums.

"In terms of values, we are clearly a hundred percent aligned, which I think is much more important, and should be much more important than whether you have technically imposed sanctions (on Russia) or not," Brnabic said, adding that "no one seems to notice that."

"The fact Serbia has technically not imposed the sanctions has nothing to do with values," she noted.