No new conditions for Serbia, says German MEP

No new conditions for Serbia, says German MEP

However, added Pack - who is the European parliament rapporteur for Bosnia-Herzegovina - the reality is that over the next four years there will be no EU enlargement." According to her, the reason is that "candidate-countries are not at a level needed to join the EU."

"Every country is at its own level, and at the same time, each of them is holding their destiny in their own hands. We cannot do the job for them, their politicians must," said Pack.

She added that "the media and some politicians in Serbia" are saying that there are new conditions for the opening of Serbia's EU membership negotiations - "but that's not true."

"The EU has had the most important condition, and that was to establish good relations with Kosovo and Pristina. This has been done and that's now it, there are no more conditions. (Serbian FM Ivica) Dacic's statement about Germany' new conditions is not true because all the conditions have been known from the start," said Pack.

According to her, a part of responsibility "for relations between Serbia and Kosovo" is also on the EU - because five EU members have still not recognized Kosovo.

Ethnic Albanians in Serbia's southern province in 2008 unilaterally declared independence, which Serbia considers a violation of its Constitution and territorial integrity. According to the German MEP, EU officials "have not applied sufficiently great pressure"on the five member-states in order for them to recognize Kosovo.

"We can always point their finger at Serbia, because it needs to change its Constitution to recognize Kosovo, but these five countries do not. If you are really interested in improving relations between these countries then why not do it and why didn't EU high representatives for foreign policy Catherine Ashton and Federica Mogherini apply more pressure on these five countries to recognize Kosovo," asked Pack.

She also commented on the EU report on Serbia's progress to say the country's judiciary was the greatest problem, describing it as "almost not functioning at all." Another problem she identified were "close links between business and politics that create high levels of corruption," as well as "the fact the government still holds in its hands many companies and economic resources, which urgently need to be privatized."

Pack criticized EU member-states "for not showing enough interest in allowing the Balkan countries to join, leading to the increasing influence of other countries on the region."

"As long as the process is slow, people will think that that the EU does not want them, and that they should look for partners elsewhere, that is, in Russia. Many in Serbia think that Russia and China are investing a lot of money in Serbia, but that's not true. Most of the money comes from the EU, but no one knows that, because politicians are not telling them," said the MEP.

Pack also stated that Russia "wants to increase and then maintain its influence in the region," but that the EU "must stop that - because Serbia has an interest to be part of Europe."