Vucic: We can meet nearly all EU criteria by 2027

BELGRADE - Serbia is on the EU path and it can meet nearly all criteria from the EU Growth Agenda and the reform agenda by 2027 regardless of whether it will become an EU member state by that time or not, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said after a meeting with the head of the EU Delegation to Serbia Emanuele Giaufret, who presented to him the European Commission's 2024 annual report on Serbia.

"We are on the EU path and the EU is our largest external trade partner, and we have set an objective for ourselves to meet all the commitments through the Growth Agenda and the reform agenda by 2027, regardless of whether we will be a member (by that time) or not. I cannot promise you we will become a member, no one can promise you that, but we can meet nearly all of those criteria," Vucic said at a press conference with Giaufret.

He said he had no objections to make about the report.

"There are things that are completely true and that we have not delivered on - alignment of our foreign policy, which, above all, has to do with introducing sanctions on the Russian Federation, introducing visas for certain countries and the acting director status of directors at many enterprises," Vucic said, adding that one of the EU's objections was that Serbia was still not a World Trade Organisation member.

"Because, only here, for reasons inconceivable to me, there is a lobby that is not letting us join the WTO because they say we will become dependent on genetically modified food. But Hungary, which is doing all it can to preserve itself, has passed regulations under which it was able to join the WTO," Vucic said.