1. rolerkoster

    The EU has planned to give candidate status for Serbia, Albania, Montenegro and Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2009, and only begin membership negotiations in 2010. They are planned to end by 2012 and then these four countries are scheduled to join in 2015.

    Macedonia and (unfortunately), Turkey are also planned to conclude their membership negotiations in 2012 (due to their poor progress) and join together with the rest in 2015, perhaps even Kosovo, if the issue is solved by then.

    The reason for this is:

    a) To prepare Europe to take this new batch of countries, considering its current saturation levels, especially after Romania and Bulgaria.

    b) To make sure that these countries have complied with all the requirements, which at the moment, neither are even close to them on many levels.

    c) Looking at the political and social relations between these countries, veto threats can be eliminated by accepting all the countries in at once.

    Only Croatia has made big steps, which is why membership negotiations will end next year and they will become a full member in 2010, but they are classified in a different category from those mentioned.

    So to conclude: if Serbia's government pushes for a pro-EU agenda, exceptions will be made for them, like other countries have had before.
    (Peter Sudyka, 31 May 2008 15:08)
  2. with the corrent speed of Serbia in achieving goals on a way to the EU, a realistic date for to get candidat status is more 2018 - than 2008.

    Until now only a few steps have been made. Serbian/EU negotiations on SAA started in November 2005, the treaty was signed by Serbia four weeks ago, but it is not implemented yet. full co-operation of the NEW governnment with the UN war crimes tribunal must show results, before implementation may start. until then it's an formal letter of intention.

    the discussion in Serbia still sticks into rhetorics on this sheet of paper - no one of the political elite has the spine to talk about political and economical reforms to come.

    the falling back of Serbia (compared to the achievements of neighbour states like Montenegro for example) is the result which is already a matter of fact.

    Serbia as an EU canditate in 2008 is a wish - which is not related to the capacities of the country. the results of last elecions show that there is no clear decision whether direction the country likes to go - any government will be deadlocked by this situation.
    (rolerkoster, 31 May 2008 13:15)