Serbia has taken a step closer to EU membership, but without bringing the question of Kosovo any closer to a solution.
In a recent poll, less than half of Serbians were in favor of their country joining the European Union. According to Euractiv, Ipsos polling consultant Srdjan Bogosavljević found
that 46% of Serbian citizens would support the country’s EU accession in a referendum, but that a mere 21% of respondents had a positive opinion of the Union.
Serbia took its first step toward membership in 2008 when the European Council established a so-called partnership with the country. The following year, the government in Belgrade filed a formal EU membership application. An accession conference, aimed at preparing Serbia for membership, started in January 2014.
The opinion poll reported by Euractiv comes on the heels of the most recent part of the accession conference. On December 14th last year, the conference opened talks about harmonizing Serbian laws and policies on transportation and the environment with EU standards. EuroNews reports that Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnbabić is confident about the negotiations: they are, she said, “a very important milestone” for her nation’s progress toward EU membership.
At the same time, EuroNews also noted:
But the EU has warned progress on [Serbia’s] path to EU membership still depends on Serbia normalising relations with Kosovo.
This means that Belgrade cannot expect to be admitted as a member of the European Union unless it recognizes Kosovo as an independent state. The government in Belgrade, however, considers Kosovo a part of Serbia.
Populated by two million mostly Albanian muslims, Kosovo sought its independence from Serbia during the Balkan Wars in the 1990s. When secession efforts escalated from peaceful to violent, Serbian troops responded in kind. In 1999, NATO launched airstrikes against Serbian forces. In June that year, Serbia agreed to a peaceful withdrawal of its forces from Kosovo.
It is unclear whether the current EU skepticism among the Serbian people is related to the conflict over Kosovo.
