BELGRADE – Serbia must be very careful because there are open issues in its relations with neighbours that are in the EU, and they could be raised in any stage of the EU accession process, says Serbia’s chief EU negotiator Tanja Miščević.“We are very aware of that and at the beginning of the process we made an overview of potential bilateral issues with all states, not only neighbouring countries, and much attention is being paid to that,” Miščević told reporters in Belgrade.
It is unknown when the problems will escalate, but they can be resolved in bilateral discussions, she said.
Bilateral commissions will continue their work once the new government has been elected, Miščević said.
“One of the problems with Croatia is the border on the Danube, the missing, the files…, so there are several issues”, Miščević said.
Corina Stratulat of the Brussels-based European Policy Centre refused to rule out the possibility of Serbia again finding itself in a situation like the one that resulted from Croatia’s veto on opening negotiation chapters 23 and 24.
It is unpredictable whether Romania will raise the issue of minorities – I do not have a crystal ball to tell if Serbia will open chapters 23 and 24 by the end of June, but we are all hoping for that, she said.