In its new annual Reform Agenda the prEUgovor coalition provides a short overview and recommendations in regard to key issues to be addressed in 2022 in the EU accession process of Serbia.
The past year was marked by intensive and accelerated activities of the executive and legislative bodies in Serbia aimed at overcoming the two-year stalemate in European integration. The main segment of these efforts was the process of constitutional changes in the field of justice, which ended in a referendum organised on 16 January 2022, based on rules that were adopted just over a month earlier and were not fully implemented. As a result that can in part be attributed to these efforts, at the end of 2021 Serbia opened Cluster 4, which, according to the new enlargement methodology, includes four negotiating chapters in the field of Green Agenda and Sustainable Connectivity. The Government of Serbia expects to open three new chapters from Cluster 3 in 2022 (Competitiveness and Inclusive Growth).
Although the European Commission has recommended the opening of two clusters with Serbia and, together with the Serbian government, has emphasised the country’s positive reform efforts, its October 2021 annual report indicated that only limited progress has been made in most chapters. Overall, in that regard, the assessment is worse than in previous years. According to the report, the results were lacking in critical areas such as judicial independence, fight against corruption, freedom of the media, and the fight against organised crime - the areas monitored by the prEUgovor coalition - as well as in handling war crimes and public administration reform. In its two resolutions, from the spring and winter of 2021, the European Parliament was more critical in assessing the state of democracy and the rule of law in Serbia, and reflected on specific incidents and highlighted cases.
Read in more detail in the prEUgovor Reform Agenda for 2022. The document includes also concise overview with recommendations regarding specific areas covered by Cluster 1, focused on the Chapters 23 and 24, as well as political criteria.
This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union, as part of the project PrEUgovor Policy Watch: building alliances for stronger impact in uncertain future. The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of the prEUgovor coalition and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union.