BELGRADE – Serbia can open at least four new chapters in its EU accession talks in the first half of 2018, says Serbia’s chief EU negotiator Tanja Miščević, announcing that a chapter on statistics would soon be sent to Brussels.
When asked to confirm that Serbia – which has opened 12 of the 35 chapters – would need to close all chapters by 2023 to be ready to join the EU in 2025 as hinted by EC President Jean-Claude Juncker, Miščević said the calculation was correct.
“But Juncker gave that as a framework date. We need to be very careful as member states are not too enthusiastic about that year,” Miščević told the RTS.
It is technically possible to do that, she noted.
However, she said she was not “too satisfied” with the number of chapters opened in 2017 because, she noted, there were three more chapters “sitting in Brussels” that could have been discussed.