Miscevic: Serbia has capacity for quicker progress in EU talks

BELGRADE - Serbian Minister for European Integration Tanja Miscevic says that, in the EU accession talks, Serbia has the administrative capacity to capitalise on its potential - institutions and a good set of laws and bylaws - to accelerate the process.

Speaking to Insajder TV, Miscevic said the number of chapters Serbia had opened in the talks as well as two closed chapters were the answer to questions about Serbia's progress in the EU integration process.

She said the new, cluster-based methodology of accession talks had introduced a greater and more important role of EU member states in the evaluation process, as well as stronger political conditioning and bilateral evaluations.

"Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has happened as well, making alignment with the (EU) common foreign and security policy a priority of all priorities. Do not forget that, from the very beginning, our negotiation process has been conditional upon rule of law. Besides Montenegro, we were the first to face this condition. And, specially for us, there is Chapter 35 - monitoring and implementation of commitments and the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina," Miscevic noted.

She added that very soon, once Bulgaria and Romania joined the Schengen area, Serbia would become an "internal external border of the EU" and that this would be an interesting and completely new situation for the country.