Brnabic:We need EU for our citizens and businesses, not in order to have commissioner

PRAGUE - Serbian Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic said on Friday in Prague Serbia needed EU membership for its citizens and its businesses, and not for the sake of having the right of veto or a commissioner.

Brnabic said this at a GLOBSEC 2026 panel on The Role of South East Europe in the Global Systemic Transformation, when asked to give her take on the EU enlargement policy and an appeal by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for accelerated EU integration of the Western Balkans through gradual integration in the bloc's decision-making process.

Responding to moderator Vladimir Bilcik's remark that the Western Balkan region is marked by conflicts, Brnabic said:

"These conflicts still persist today. Fortunately, they are not armed conflicts anymore - far from that, I hope - but still marked by conflicts, and we cannot seem to get out of this."

"For those reasons, it is quite clear that the region needs to become part of the European Union as the most successful peace project in human history for these conflicts to stay in the past," she added.

However, Brnabic noted that, today, the EU was "basically asking for purely administrative things."

"I understand values, I understand the importance of the rule of law but, then again, all of these can also be dealt with, and perhaps much more easily, when the region is part of the EU. And I do believe that it is a political and strategic decision that needs to be made," she added.

"So I would just go with the brave decision, show that the EU has leadership, that they can do it and that, anyway, all of the open questions that we have in the region could actually be resolved more easily when the region as a whole is part of the EU," Brnabic noted.

"(Serbian) President (Aleksandar) Vucic, as you have said, along with PM Edi Rama of Albania, has already said we need the EU. We need it for our citizens, we need it for our businesses. We do not need some of the things that full-fledged EU members have right now, which is already gradual membership - which is something that Friedrich Merz was actually talking about in his letter yesterday. That is, we do not need a commissioner. The EU currently has too many commissioners," Brnabic noted.

"And secondly, what do we need a veto right for? We are not entering the EU to make things more complicated, we are not entering to make problems, create trouble. We do not need a veto right, we do not need a commissioner," she added, noting that Serbia was hoping the EU would have fewer commissioners, making the European administration more efficient.

"We need this for our citizens, we need this for our businesses, and we think that we will make Europe stronger politically, economically and strategically," Brnabic concluded.

The panel was also attended by PPF Group executive Jan Ruzicka, former US ambassadors to Belgrade Christopher Hill and Cameron Munter, Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia President Marko Cadez, the EU special envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue Peter Sorensen and his predecessor Miroslav Lajcak.