Angela Merkel says that Serbia is not ready for EU candidate status yet

German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated on Friday that Serbia did not meet the conditions for obtaining the EU candidate status at the moment.

She called on the Serbian government to shift its orientation.

“At the moment Serbia does not meet the conditions of the EU accession process,” Merkel said in a release issued by the German government ahead of the forthcoming EU summit, which is due on Friday, December 9.

The German chancellor qualified the recent conflicts in northern Kosovo as unacceptable and recalled that good cooperation with neighbors was also one of the criteria for the EU enlargement.