In decades of the enlargement process, the conventional wisdom was clear, “transformative power of EU accession will lead to accepting EU standards which will improve the democracy and quality of life in a candidate country”. Once upon a time, this was a true statement.
However, the current enlargement, particularly in the case of Serbia, has broken even this, very logical and straightforward statement.
For the last 10 years, since the accession negotiations opened in 2014, Serbia has managed to get formally closer to EU membership while effectively moving away from EU standards and rules.
