November 27, 2009

The national public often has the groundless view of European standards and norms as the conditions and requests that the EU exclusively imposes on Serbia. Practice and experience have shown that these standards should be understood as sort of a “recipe”, whose implementation leads to the developmental results. The projects entitled “What does EU bring – case studies in the effects of Serbia’s association in the fields of ecology, agriculture and cross-border cooperation” gathered experts to discuss what does the implementation of those standards means exactly. More details prepared by Dusica Maticki.

“The Europeanization of Serbia is a process of inner changes that should contribute to better quality of citizens’ life and the progress on the course of integrations with the EU”, assessed Jadranka Jelincic, the director of the Fund for Open Society. She pointed that the EU dictates to the candidate countries conditions for the admission, but that those conditions should be adapted to the requirements of one’s own development. Jelincic said that the European standards should be viewed as a recipe, whose “relations among ingredients” depend on the individual countries. Director of the Serbian Government’s Office of European Integrations Milica Delevic has stressed that when choosing to join the EU, Serbia has accepted certain obligations. Regular legislative activities have been established, but there is still a lot of work to do, she warned.

Professor of the Belgrade Faculty of Political Science Jovan Teokarevic has stated that with the admission of new members in 2004 and 1007, the Europeanization has achieved unexpectedly great success, especially in the areas of human freedoms and democracy. “We have also made good progress, and we should be satisfied, because Serbia, croatia and Montenegro are following our eastern neighbors, Romania and Bulgaria, in that regard”, assessed Teokarevic. He warned about the illusion that, in his opinion, is being spread by the authorities, namely that Serbia is but one step from the EU and that filing for the candidature will resolve all our problems. He compared the candidature with an enrollment exam, since the real work commences afterwards. His colleague from the same faculty Tanja Miscevic has emphasized that every formal step in the process of European integrations means progress, and one of the results of that progress is the visa liberalization. Executive Director of the Citizens’ Initiatives Miljenko Dereta has noted that the visa liberalization is important, because the freedom of move is one of the basic citizen freedoms.

The main goal of this project is to research in which way do the processes of European integrations and Serbia’s rapprochement to the EU increase the chances of Serbia to accelerate and make better use of its developmental potentials. Candidate states and potential candidates are yet to harmonize their standards, primarily for their own sake, and then also in the interest of the EU as a whole. Therefore, these three studies point to the consequences that are offered through the implementation of European standards and regulations, through the process of Europeanization and rapprochement to the EU, and later via the full membership in the Union. The organizers of this project are the Fund for Open Society and the Center for Applied European Studies.