Brnabic: Participation in European conferences important for Serbia's EU path

COPENHAGEN - Serbian Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic said on Monday participation in European conferences by Serbian representatives was exceptionally important for EU accession, one of Serbia's strategic goals.

"We believe it is exceptionally important for Serbia to attend all European conferences. At the end of the day, European integration is a strategic priority of our country," Brnabic told reporters in Copenhagen, where she is attending a conference of parliament speakers of EU member states and candidate countries.

She said it had been particularly important to hear the discussion at the first session, which she noted had largely been about the EU enlargement agenda.

Brnabic said she had had, and would have, a series of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the conference to discuss Serbia's EU path with European partners.

"I will be trying to have as many meetings as possible - both official and unofficial ones - to speak again about what all the things that are going on in Serbia are and about all the things we have done on our reform path, and to again ask for support for opening additional clusters (in the accession talks), which I think Serbia more than deserves," Brnabic said.

Asked if the EU member states were aware the EU was an unfinished job without the Western Balkans, she responded that she believed the majority of them were aware of this but that there were still countries that were generally skeptical about enlargement.

"We also heard that from some speakers, who said that they believe that, under geopolitical circumstances like these, enlargement can pose a threat to the European Union, rather than strengthen the European Union. So, it is interesting to hear those messages, too," Brnabic added.

She said that, on the other hand, Ukraine had launched an as-yet-unofficial initiative aimed at much closer cooperation among all membership candidate countries towards coordination of activities and mutual support on the EU path.