J. Joksimović: Poland sets no additional conditions for Chapter 31, but expects greater alignment

October 24 2017 | Warsaw

J. Joksimović: Poland sets no additional conditions for Chapter 31, but expects greater alignment

“Poland will certainly not block the opening of Chapter 31, and will not ask for specific benchmarks for the opening of this chapter, although it expects greater alignment with the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy”, Minister of European Integration Jadranka Joksimović has said during her visit to Warsaw today.

Minister Joksimović, who is currently in a working visit to Poland said, after the meeting with Secretary of State for European Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland Konrad Szymański, that Poland's expectations for Serbia to achieve greater alignment with EU Common Foreign and Security Policy was a position already known to Serbia, and that she had therefore presented Serbia’s arguments and positions, adding that it was good that this topic was being discussed.

The Minister stressed that Serbia never ran away from any subject, however demanding and difficult. She added that it was important that Serbia had heard that, despite having differences on certain topics, Poland treated Chapter 31 in a fair and principled manner, and that no different rules should apply for Serbia than those applied for other candidate countries. "Poland will certainly not block the opening of Chapter 31 when conditions for it are met, and will certainly not ask for specific benchmarks for the opening of this chapter when it comes to Serbia, although they are clear about their expectation of greater alignment with the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy," Joksimović said.

She added that there had been discussions on the fact that Poland had recently been offered an opportunity to be the country to conduct the Berlin Process in 2019. "There is no final decision on the matter yet, but we have presented our expectations from the Berlin Process, explained at which stage the process is, presented the regional circumstances, the results in terms of infrastructural connectivity and all other important issues in the process, regional economic area and everything else we have been trying to discuss for years," Joksimović stated.

The Minister said that it was important that Serbia had opened the dialogue with Poland, adding that she expected Konrad Szymański to come to Serbia the following year, as well as the Head of Polish diplomacy, Witold Vaschikovsky.

Minister Joksimović stressed that it was important to cooperate with Poland, and that it was of vital importance for Serbia, as a candidate country, to cooperate with the Member States of the European Union on a bilateral basis, to open dialogues, explain its position so that it can gain more understanding and support in the EU accession negotiation process.

(source: Tanjug)