Macron wishes Serbia was more eager to join the EU

French President Emmanuel Macron said he regrets the lack of enthusiasm in Serbia for accession to the EU ahead of his visit to the country Thursday.
In a letter published Thursday in Serbian media, Macron said that despite Serbia’s closeness to the EU, the prospect of the country joining the bloc “does not attract as much as it should.”
“In the background there are concerns and fatigue, especially regarding the pace of accession negotiations, but sometimes a kind of resentment and even mistrust regarding the European Union, which have their source in recent history,” Macron wrote in the letter.
Serbia has annoyed the European Union over its ties with Russia and for refusing to comply with European sanctions against Moscow during the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine.
In his letter, Macron said that Serbia “should not fear” that its sovereignty and identity would be lost if it joins the EU. “Like France, Serbia aspires to the independence and sovereignty that only the EU, possessing the means of its strategic autonomy, can provide,” he said.
Serbia has been an EU membership candidate since 2012.
Macron also addressed the Serbian minority living in Kosovo, an issue which sporadically threatens to flare up into violence.
“The path we proposed toward the necessary normalization preserves the essence: the possibility for Serbs to live in Kosovo while respecting the law, but not renouncing their identity or their natural ties with Serbia,” he wrote.
Macron will visit Serbia on Thursday and Friday, marking his second visit to the country after five years. “Since then, our relations, our exchanges and our partnerships have developed even more,” he said, referring to his last visit in 2019.
Macron will meet with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and will visit Belgrade and Novi Sad. During the visit, Macron and Vučić are expected to sign a deal to sell 12 French Rafale fighter jets to Serbia.
Possible investment by France’s state electric company EDF in a hydroelectric power plant is also on the agenda. Serbia’s Minister of Mines and Energy Dubravka Đedović Handanović said in June that he hoped for the EDF to “put forward a proposal on the use of nuclear energy in peacetime.”
Victor Goury-Laffont contributed to this report.