Support for Serbia’s EU candidacy

The European Council agreed on Thursday (1 March) that Serbia should be an official candidate for membership of the European Union.

The decision had effectively already been taken on Tuesday (28 February) at a meeting of the foreign ministers or European affairs ministers from the 27 member states of the EU, which recommended acceptance of Serbia’s candidacy.

It was there that Germany ended its resistance to granting Serbia the status of a candidate for EU membership. Germany, with support from Austria, had blocked Serbia’s membership bid at a European Council in December.

This time round, there was another last-minute hiccup when Romania, at a meeting of foreign affairs ministers on Monday, raised the issue of the small Vlach minority in Serbia, which Romania views as ethnic Romanian. (Not all Vlachs would agree with this.)

Unwelcome objection

Romania’s objection, and its timing, annoyed the foreign ministers of other countries, who agreed that Serbia had been constructive in negotiations with Kosovo – the main demand made by the EU in December. On Thursday, Traian Ba?sescu, Romania’s president, went into the European Council with the comment that the Serbia problem had been “resolved”. Pledges by the European Commission to monitor implementation of Serbia’s minority rights appeared to have placated the Romanians.

Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, denied that any link had been made “at any moment” between Romania’s attempts to block Serbia and the Council’s discussions about admitting Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen area of border-free travel, which was blocked by the Netherlands. If Romania had been trying to make such a link, said one diplomat, it could only have been counter-productive, since the Netherlands had previously blocked Serbia’s bid for membership and has been unenthusiastic about further enlarging the EU.