Eurasia Press & News
Geopolitics further tightened expectations from Serbia. If the process is sincerely approached again and Serbia’s European dimension is politically established, I believe in Serbia’s membership, even though there are great challenges in overcoming the misunderstanding between the EU and Serbia, which both arose objectively, but which has been built for a long time through public and media discourse in Serbia, he tells Danas former Minister for European Integration Jadranka Joksimović, on the occasion of 11 years since receiving the status of a candidate for the EU.
As she says, she worked without any political calculation, often contrary to the leading currents and the political matrix, but dedicated and sincere to the idea of a modern Serbia functionally belonging to the EU and European identity.
Joksimović says that as a minister in the governments of Serbia from 2014 to 2022, from the minister without portfolio in charge of European integration from 2014 to 2017, and then on two occasions the minister for European integration when she established the Ministry for European Integration in 2017, all the time performing at the same time as the Chief Negotiator of Serbia with the EU and the National Coordinator of IPA funds and overall development aid, he certainly has the obligation to review all the results achieved by Serbia and its citizens in the accession process.
“My job and goal was that everything that was proclaimed as a foreign policy priority – membership in the EU be not only the main foreign policy priority, but also that through the comprehensive reform process that takes place precisely within the framework of the accession negotiations, that process also becomes the leading internal dynamic society in the direction of general democratization, functional rule of law, competitive and open stably progressing economy and the state as an efficient service to citizens. On that path, and with such an orientation and with the officially opened negotiations in 2014, Serbia became an associated country of the EU, in the process of accession,” Joksimović points out.
In this sense, IPA funds have been made available to us in a decentralized way of management since 2014, which is a great trust and responsibility shown to our country, as he says, and to the system it built, sometimes with the effective cooperation of colleagues from governments, sometimes with problems and misunderstanding.
“The system was built and set up in a way that no country from the region that is in the process has established it. I personally negotiated and signed for eight years about 1.5 billion euros for Serbia as part of the IPA funds, and from that money, numerous projects are still being implemented today and what has been done responsibly for years is getting signed,” says Joksimović.
She notes that in 2014, she found only the head of the negotiation team, appointed in 2013, who did not form a team for a full 1.5 years, and a beheaded Office for European Integration without an appointed director.
“So much for the seriousness with which the then structure dealt with European integrations, which for too long served as a conceited elitist ban on fake expertise and problematic careers, but which the project class knew how to charge and live tucked away and untouched on the exclusivity of its “special knowledge.” In accordance with obligations and my style of work, which many did not like, neither in Brussels nor in Belgrade, I immediately set about establishing structures, I formed a negotiation team, as the negotiation methodology at the time required,” emphasizes Joksimović.
The former minister says that at the same time, at her suggestion, the director of the then office for European integration was also appointed – Ksenija Milenković. Then, he notes, the structures were finally established for the needs of the then methodology.
“So, in those three years from 2014 to 2017, as the minister without portfolio in charge of EI, I established the coordination of all the newly formed structures in order to better respond to the challenge of starting the accession negotiation process. “That process has been made many times more difficult from the beginning by the obligations from the negotiation framework, which is unchanged even now, but only adapted to the requirements of the new methodology and has two key conditions or suspensive mechanisms of negotiations – progress in the rule of law and, specifically for Serbia – the implementation of the Brussels Agreement,” Joksimović points out. .
The idea of establishing an umbrella and full-fledged ministry for EI that will unite all structures, he notes, was rational, logical and in line with Serbia’s progress and going deeper into the accession process.
“Coordination is the key word for good management of the accession negotiation process, and this was achieved by establishing the Ministry for EI.” “Unfortunately, a new problem immediately opened up for those who did not want to bring the process closer to the citizens and make it the property of everyone, but to keep their own privileges and influence networks of the bureaucratic middle and lower ranks,” she points out.
Joksimović says that the head of the negotiation team at the time – for whom she was asked to leave her in that position even though the need for that position no longer existed – did not want to be part of the unified structures, creating drama by insisting that she remain outside the scope of the ministry’s jurisdiction.
“So much for “new forces in the Government”. But, more important than those politically irrelevant phenomena, is that we have reached the new methodology, that is, from 2015, when the first chapters were opened, to 2021, we opened 18 chapters, more than half, in the period when the so-called the enlargement policy and the accession process itself fell into its well-known tedious phase (especially from 2017 onwards) in the EU as well, and then this consequently spilled over to the candidates and potential candidates,” the former Minister for European Integration points out.
After the proposal of a new methodology, which, according to her, was barely made by the EU, which was looking for a cluster approach and stronger political management of the process, structural changes were immediately started.
“I introduced coordinators for all six newly established clusters of the political rank of state secretaries or assistant ministers who would have increased responsibility for the process and reforms, as well as a new sector in the MEI for the coordination of national reforms in accordance with the goals of the Green Agenda and the goals of sustainable development. And although no one expected it, in December 2021, Serbia was the only one to open an entire new cluster 4 Green agenda and sustainable connectivity, with four new chapters, so a total of 22 according to the old methodology,” emphasizes Joksimović.
Numerous reforms have been implemented in order to achieve this, he points out, and numerous political assurances about Serbia’s commitment to the European path.
“So, I did more than possible in relation to the objective state of the enlargement policy among the members, and in relation to the small support both in the government and among the citizens of Serbia. Of course, the accession process is primarily political, which is unequivocally shown today through the expectation that Serbia joins the common foreign policy of the EU as an associated country and that the reaching of an agreement on the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina be accelerated,” emphasizes Joksimović.
Nothing is unexpected or new, she notes, but, as she says, she is sure that the dynamics of events, but also of Serbia’s European path, could have been different in recent months if Serbia had behaved as the status of an associated country in the accession process obliges.
“Perhaps in that case even such a proposal for a normalization agreement concluded with the boom-tras method would not reach the table outside of
all the negotiating rules and the negotiating framework with Serbia, but that is already a question for another type of analysis,” Joksimović points out.
This, as he says, is a summary of the important activities undertaken in order for Serbia to successfully lead the accession process.
“All remarks on the speed and dynamics cannot be addressed only to the questionable sincerity of the governments since 2014, without knowing about the very change in the EU’s inclination towards enlargement, and the essential changes in the process that have significantly complicated it politically, especially for Serbia”, concludes Jadranka Joksimović.
