BERLIN – Anton Hofreiter, a long-time Green Party member of the German parliament and chairman of the Committee on European Affairs, told European Western Balkans that “some members of the ruling parties reacted quite sensitively” to his remarks and those of Boris Mijatović, also a German MP, during a meeting in the National Assembly of Serbia earlier this week.
The portal Nova.rs reported on Wednesday, 19 November, that the meeting of the parliamentary friendship group with Germany, where members of the Serbian National Assembly met with members of the Bundestag, was tense.
Robert Kozma, an MP from the Green–Left Front, told Nova that the session was “extremely turbulent” and that “representatives of the Serbian Progressive Party reacted extremely angrily, behaved inappropriately, shouted comments, and insulted the guests.”
In a statement for European Western Balkans, Anton Hofreiter says that he and his colleague Boris Mijatović visited Belgrade this week and met with MPs from several parliamentary groups in the National Assembly of Serbia.
“From the German side, we made it unmistakably clear that Serbia can only join the European Union if it fully upholds democratic principles. This includes press freedom, the freedom of assembly, and transparent elections”, Hofreiter said.
He added that “some members of the ruling parties reacted quite sensitively to these remarks.”
“However, this will not stop us from speaking openly about these issues. We stand firmly alongside the democratic opposition in Serbia and remain unequivocal: EU membership is only possible when the necessary democratic criteria are met,” Hofreiter concluded.
Hofreiter and Mijatović held a press conference with the leaders of the Green–Left Front (ZLF), Biljana Đorđević and Radomir Lazović, before the meeting of the parliamentary friendship group. ZLF is a member of the European Green Party, to which the German Greens also belong.
At the press conference, Hofreiter stated that developments in Serbia in recent years, as well as the country’s EU progress reports, show that the authorities are “destroying democracy and media freedom,” and that for the citizens of Serbia “it would be best to have a government that fights corruption, protects the rule of law, and guarantees media freedom.”
“These are the expectations of the German parliament and of the citizens of the EU. These are the preconditions that every country wishing to become an EU member must fulfill. I hope that the citizens of Serbia will soon have the opportunity for Serbia to become part of the EU, because that would bring prosperity and a clear fight against corruption,” Hofreiter said.
The Bundestag’s Committee on European Affairs, chaired by Hofreiter, held separate meetings in October with Ana Brnabić, Speaker of the National Assembly and Raša Nedeljkov, program director of CRTA, an NGO, regarding the situation in Serbia.
