Knjiga preporuka Nacionalnog konventa o Evropskoj uniji : 2019
Book of recommendations of the National Convention on the European Union: 2019

Contributor(s): Nataša Dragojlović (Editor)
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, EU-Approach / EU-Accession / EU-Development
Published by: Evropski Pokret u Srbiji
Keywords: European Union; EU membership; Serbia; Western Balkans
Summary/Abstract: A whole decade has passed since Serbia took its first steps towards the European Union, since on December 22, 2009, it applied for membership. After a decade of slow progress, one step forward and two steps back, EU membership has become too abstract and unattainable, even for the biggest Euro-enthusiasts in Serbia and the biggest proponents of enlargement among the EU member states. The promise, which the European Union gave at the beginning of the 21st century to the countries of the Western Balkans, it fulfilled when it comes to the countries that, at least formally, fulfilled the Copenhagen criteria and some other additional criteria. Therefore, it is possible to fulfill those criteria. Slovenia applied for membership in 1996. The current situation in the country was such that it allowed the unhindered opening of all negotiation chapters already in the first two years. The negotiations were closed without major difficulties and on April 16, 2003, Slovenia signed the accession agreement. A similar situation existed in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which in that period began negotiations and became EU members in 2004. The Prime Minister of Slovakia submitted the application for membership of this country to the European Union on June 27, 1995, when four other countries did so. However, the negotiations were opened only in March 2000 and included 31 chapters. Although it started official negotiations two years after Slovenia, it managed to speed up that process a lot, and opened almost all negotiation chapters in the same year 2000, only to be officially closed at the end of 2002, at the same time as the negotiations with the countries that were in the negotiation process for two years longer ended. The continuation of the path of Slovakia and Slovenia towards the European Union is the same as the other countries that were part of the "big wave of enlargement" - the signing of the accession treaty on April 16, 2003 and the entry into force of that treaty and official membership on May 1, 2004. It took Bulgaria and Romania 12 years each to cross this road. After more than eight years since the application for membership and almost six years of negotiations, Croatia also became a member of the EU in 2013. Today, to paraphrase the great Tolstoy, all member states of the European Union look alike, and each candidate state is unhappy in its own way and is at a different distance from full membership in the European Union.

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