2014-01-16

On Wednesday, 15th of January 2014 the European Parliament’s plenary discussed the issue of Serbia becoming a new member state. RMDSZ MEP Csaba Sógor was present at the debate on Serbia’s progress in 2013.

Mentioning the example of Romania, the Transylvanian MEP advised that the negotiations be carried out with the utmost care in order to prevent future legal compliance issues and the necessity of post-accession monitoring of the country. One issue that needs reassuring solutions concerns national minorities.

The video recording of the speech can be viewed here:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sed/speeches.do?sessionDate=20140115

"I was pleased to hear that membership negotiations with Serbia have started, and hopefully our community will be enlarged in a few years with a new member state. However, obtaining the EU membership will be a great challenge both for the Serbian authorities and for the European Commission. The negotiating parties will be well advised to remember what happened when Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU: today it is very clear that the two countries were not prepared for accession; now we have to live with the consequences. Romania’s judiciary system has been under EU monitoring since 2007 and, for the time being, the reports of the Commission are far from stating that this will change any time soon. This was part of the agreement at the time of the accession, but experts argue that had these problems been resolved prior to the accession - even if this meant delaying it by a couple of years - there would be no need for supervision at all. In my view it is in the interest of the citizens of Serbia – Serbs, Hungarians, Romanians, Bosnians, Croats and the other minorities – to engage in exhaustive talks, face problems openly, and delay accession until all issues are resolved in a reassuring manner."