Serbia & The EU

Since the democratic changes in Serbia in 2000, the relations between Serbia and the European Union have expanded and deepened. In the last decade, the relations have evolved in such a way that the European Union is today Serbia’s largest trade partner and over 50% of total Serbian export goes to the EU and over 2 billion euros were invested in Serbia since 2000, not counting the investments of the individual member states. The EU is also the biggest donor to Serbia, providing financial support for political and economic reforms in Serbia.

EU and Serbia since 2000 - ten years assistance

On the political front, the European Council on March 1 granted Serbia Candidate status. 

Source: European Integration Office of Government of Serbia 2012

After Belgrade submitted the European Union membership application in late December 2009, Serbia completed the ambitious task of providing answers to the European Commission’s Questionnaire on 31 January 2011. It was on this date that Serbia submitted to the European Commission the last set of answers to additional questions, thus completing the process which started three months earlier, when Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetković delivered the answers to the EC Questionnaire. The European Commission handed over its Questionnaire to Serbia on 24 November 2010. One day later, the Council forwarded Serbia’s application for EU membership to the European Commission.

The European Commission recommended on 12 October 2011 for Serbia to become a candidate country for EU membership and in its Opinion that the country will be ready to start accession negotiations as soon as further good progress is made in the dialogue with Priština. The European Commission’s recommendation came almost three months after Serbia arrested and extradited the last remaining ICTY fugitive, a Croatian Serb wartime leader Goran Hadžić. The most wanted ICTY fugitive, former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladić, was arrested on 26 May. At their last summit on 9 December 2011, the heads of state or government of the EU Member States noted the considerable progress Serbia has made towards fulfilling the political criteria set by the Copenhagen European Council and the Stabilisation and Association Process requirements and that a fully satisfactory level in its co-operation with ICTY was reached. The European Council postponed the decision on granting Serbia candidate status until March 2012.

In parallel with Serbia’s membership application, the ratification process of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA), signed by the EU Member States and Serbia on 29 April in Luxembourg, is also under way. Between late October and late November 2011, the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with Serbia was ratified by France and Finland. Since June 2010, when the European Commission decided to start the SAA ratification process, the Stabilisation and Association Agreement has been ratified by 23 out of 27 EU Member States. The ratification procedure is under way in the remaining four EU Member States – Lithuania, the Netherlands, Belgium and Romania.

The contractual relationship between Serbia and the EU with prospects of full membership was established on 29 April 2008 in Luxembourg, when the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) and the Interim Agreement were signed. Previously, in mid-February, the Council adopted a Decision on the principles, priorities and conditions contained in the European Partnership with Serbia.

Interim Trade Agreement EU – Serbia entered into force on 1 February 2010; Belgrade had already started unilateral implementation of the agreement on 1 January 2009, a month and a half after the Serbian Government’s decision.

Arguably the most impressive moment for Serbian citizens in the relations with the EU occured on 30 of November when Serbia was placed on the “White Schengen” list. For almost two decades Serbian citizens were required to have a visa in order to enter the Schengen area; now, free movement, last minute trips, vacations abroad and weekends in neighbouring countries finally became a reality for the citizens of Serbia.

This was preceded by a long negotiation process, with intermittent interruptions. On 13 June 2007, Serbia and the European Union resumed the negotiations on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, following Serbia’s clear commitment to achieve full cooperation with the ICTY. The negotiations, which started in October 2005, were called off a year earlier due to lack of progress in Serbia’s co-operation with this Court. In October 2004, the European Union opened up a process for a Stabilization and Association Agreement, four months after the Council’s decision on the European Partnership with Serbia and Montenegro. This decision was updated in January 2006.

In June 2003, at Thessaloniki Summit, the SAP was confirmed as the EU policy for the Western Balkans. The EU perspective for all the countries of the region was confirmed.

Following the fall of Slobodan Milošević’s regime in October 2000, Serbia was granted Autonomous Trade Preferences from the EU in less than a month. In June of the following year, Feira European Council states that all the SAP countries are “potential candidates” for EU membership. A month later, the EU-FRY Consultative Task Force was established, which was several years later – as the relations developed – turned into the Enhanced Permanent Dialogue (EPD). This joint body several times a year meets in Belgrade or Brussels and assess and discusses the European integration process and Serbia's implementation of EU standards and norms, priorities that lie ahead and overall progress of economic and political reforms in the country.