Serbia without a roadmap towards the EU, what else does Belgrade risk losing?

There will be no roadmap for Serbia in the European Union accession process.

The European Commission will publish at the end of October the roadmaps for Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova, as the countries that have made the greatest progress in the accession process.

This officially confirms that Serbia has lost the position it once had as one of the leading countries in the European integration process.

"Serbia will have to meet more conditions. After the elections, we will see how serious its government is, whether it will only talk about its desire to become an EU member, or will it even take concrete steps in this direction," said European Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos.

Speaking before the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, Kos stressed that this applies particularly to strategic alignment and harmonization with the EU's common foreign and security policy.

For Strahinja Subotic, from the Belgrade-based non-governmental organization Center for European Policy, the fact that Serbia will not receive a roadmap constitutes a serious warning and evidence that this country is stagnating in the European integration process.

He said that the stagnation is no longer reflected only in the fact that Serbia, for years, has not opened any chapter group in the membership negotiations and has no opportunity to benefit from funds under the Growth Plan.

"Now, essentially, we are being sent the message that we may also lose numerous benefits associated with gradual EU membership," he said.

The roadmaps will be part of the enlargement package, which the European Commission plans to adopt on October 28.

Serbia has not opened any chapter groups in EU accession negotiations since December 2021.

European Commissioner Marta Kos presented this week the European Commission's new proposal for the rules that will apply to future members of the European Union.

Explaining why only four countries will receive roadmaps, Kos said they only make sense for states that make genuine progress in the membership process.

"I would compare it to a car. If the car doesn't work, there's no point in pushing it from behind when the engine isn't running. And the engine can only work if it has fuel, and the fuel is the reforms within the country," she said.

Corina Stratulat, from the European Policy Center (EPC), said that Serbia's exclusion from the roadmaps is a message to candidate countries that the position of a leading country in the European integration process must be earned and maintained.

"The EU should justify this decision with clear criteria in the field of democratic reforms, the rule of law and foreign policy harmonisation, as well as clearly define what Serbia needs to do to make up for the delay. The European Union also needs a roadmap for its own preparations, because reforms in candidate countries alone are not enough for enlargement to be achieved," Stratulat said.

Serbia's European integration process has practically stalled since December 2021, when Group Chapter 4 was opened, the last one that Belgrade has opened in the negotiations for membership in the European Union.

This group of chapters includes the green agenda and sustainable connectivity, and was opened at the height of protests against the Rio Tinto company's lithium exploitation project.

The impasse was initially related to the fact that Serbia had not harmonized its foreign policy with the sanctions that the European Union imposed on Russia, following the launch of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – just two months after the opening of the last chapter.

Meanwhile, the situation in the area of ​​the rule of law has also deteriorated, further complicating Serbia's efforts to break out of the several-year stalemate in the European integration process.

Subotic estimates that, with this approach, Serbia risks remaining where it is, namely at the end of the line of countries aiming for membership in the European Union.

"And remain stuck in a kind of isolated Balkans, especially if countries like Montenegro and Albania continue to work as they have so far and manage to join the EU in the foreseeable future," he said.

How did Serbia lose ground to other candidate countries?

In December 2021, when Serbia opened the last group chapter, Montenegro had provisionally closed only three negotiation chapters.

Today, he is close to completing negotiations, with the prospect of signing the Accession Agreement next summer.

Albania, which is now ranked second among the countries leading the enlargement process, had not yet taken the decision to open accession negotiations as of December 2021. Negotiations with Albania opened in July 2022.

In the following years, Ukraine and Moldova also received candidate country status and subsequently opened membership negotiations.

All these developments have led to Serbia gradually losing its position among the leading countries in the European integration process.

Asked how Albania, Ukraine and Moldova managed to surpass Serbia, which was once among the leading countries in the European integration process, alongside Montenegro, Subotic says that, according to the European Commission, Serbia continues to be the second most technically prepared candidate country for EU membership.

 "But, unlike Serbia, these countries are making good progress in a large number of negotiating chapters. It is no longer necessarily just technical preparation that is taken into account, but also the sincere political will to make progress in many chapters," he said.

According to him, the European Commission has shown that, through gradual accession, it aims to maintain the pace of progress, so that candidate countries that may not be the most technically prepared, can reach a higher level of readiness for membership in the foreseeable future.

The last serious attempt to break Serbia out of the deadlock in the European integration process was made in July, when several European Union member states considered that Serbia should be allowed to open Chapter 3.

This was one of the most serious efforts in support of Belgrade, as the initiative also had the support of influential countries in the EU, including Germany and France. However, the necessary consensus was not reached.

Radio Free Europe learns from sources that, from July to September, efforts continued to convince other member states to reach unanimity and unblock the process.

According to diplomatic sources of Radio Free Europe, countries that supported the continuation of Belgrade's European path gave up, at least temporarily, on these efforts in September, following developments related to the death and burial of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic.

These developments, together with the early elections announced for October 25, suggest that, by the end of the year, there is little likelihood of any concrete progress in Serbia's EU membership process. (REL)