Serbian Minister of European Integration Jadranka Joksimović has stated today that it is very important that the bilateral visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her statements confirm Germany’s balanced and fair policy regarding Serbia’s European integration.
In her written statement, Joksimović has said that Merkel’s visit is extremely important, given that it comes just before crucial elections in Germany and Merkel’s announced stepping down.
She has noted that such visits of the outgoing chancellor are carefully chosen for the political and symbolic messages they send.
“With this, Merkel is not only showing that the Western Balkans has been an important part of Germany’s foreign and European policy, but also that she is leaving a high level of continuous interests and launched initiatives in our region and Serbia to her successor, regardless of the party this successor is elected from, which will undoubtedly be from a coalition government”, noted Joksimović.
The Minister has further stated that the choice and arrangement of the visit speak about her personal respect for Serbia, as well as for the responsible regional policy whose initiator and reliable partner is President Aleksandar Vučić, who personally has a consistently respectful relation with Merkel.
“This could particularly be felt in emphasising the importance of the Berlin Process, which the Chancellor initiated in 2014 and which the Serbian President and Government have been actively implementing in good faith for years. This has yielded concrete results, where one of the pivotal affirmations of success will be the announced large infrastructure regional projects”, assessed Joksimović.
She has further noted the importance of the Chancellor’s statement that significant progress is evident in the rule of law and economy, as well as the announced recognition of the results achieved so far in the reform process and expectations of further efforts in the same direction.
Joksimović has recalled that Serbia has demonstrated readiness for the application of the new cluster methodology and has met the opening benchmarks for two entire clusters, with indisputably increased political readiness and additional work on the criteria from the area of the rule of law and constitutional reforms related to judiciary.
“The aim of the new methodology is to accelerate the process for those that implement reforms, so I expect that our work and progress will be recognised and that we will have a good pace of opening the clusters for which we are ready. A credible and reliable application of the new criteria and delivery of results must be the ‘modus operandi’ of the EU and us as an acceding country”, stated Joksimović.
According to her, what is also particularly important is the announced stronger partnership between Serbia and Germany in the fight against climate change, which clearly speaks to how much Serbia, i.e. President Vučić and the Government are respected as a responsible partner in achieving the goals of the new EU flagship policy on Green Agenda and climate transformation.
“This partnership in the fight against climate change did not just come out of nowhere. For a long time, we have been actively working on strengthening and promoting the policy of achieving a climate neutral European continent, preparing for all the consequences as well as opportunities our country and its citizens will have in that process. Obviously, in this case, Germany has reviewed and acknowledged all of that”, concluded Joksimović.
Source: Tanjug
