Brnabic: Denmark sees two outstanding issues on Serbia's EU path

COPENHAGEN - Serbian Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic, who is on an official visit to Denmark, said on Thursday in Copenhagen Denmark was interested in EU enlargement but had still not agreed to opening further chapters in Serbia's accession talks, and added that Denmark saw two outstanding issues on Serbia's EU path - media and alignment with the EU foreign policy.

Brnabic said the issues had been discussed at her meeting with the Presidium of the Danish parliament, the top authority managing the work of the legislature.

"They see two outstanding issues - above all, why Serbia has not imposed, and is still not imposing, sanctions on the Russian Federation and how that matches our European path, and how we can increase our alignment with the EU's common foreign and security policy," Brnabic told reporters after the meeting.

She added that the issue of media freedoms had been discussed in a completely open manner.

"It is always good to discuss those things in an open and direct manner, rather than with indirect diplomatic vocabulary, so that we better understand each other, that we better understand what their objections to us are or what might not be sufficiently clear to them, and so that we have a chance to speak about those things and explain things from our angle," Brnabic said.

She noted that parliamentary diplomacy was extremely important amid efforts to accelerate EU integration and establish much better communication and cooperation with countries that might be more skeptical about, and critical of, Serbia's moves on its EU path.

"This visit to Denmark and the Danish parliament is another in a series of visits to such countries. Denmark is a country that is interested in enlargement, but also a country that has still not given full consent for opening clusters, or even for opening all chapters in Cluster 3," Brnabic said.