The Ministry of European Integration and the Negotiating Team of Serbia reacted today to the latest report of the Coalition prEUgovor on Serbia's progress in Chapters 23 and 24, stressing that they are very pleased that the civil society is so seriously monitoring the process of reforms in these chapters and the fulfilment of the Action Plans.
In a response to a question by Tanjug, the Ministry and the Negotiating Team have said that this is a confirmation of the Serbian government's commitment to make the negotiations on EU membership more transparent and to involve as many actors as possible.
"That is why we have very seriously accepted cooperation with the National Convention on the EU which, we recall, has become part of the procedures for the adoption of all negotiation documents. The role of the civil society, in this case a platform that gathers more than 700 organizations, has thus been raised to a level that it did not have in any state that had previously negotiated or is currently negotiating on the membership," as stated by this institution.
The Ministry and the Negotiating Team have pointed out that the Coalition prEUgovor, unfortunately, is not a part of this platform, but that they have never denied them an interview or answers to all their questions.
"If, during the preparation of this Report, they had the need to hear from us, we would have explained to them that we are fully aware of all the expired deadlines, but also of those which have been respected, of all the measures that had to be implemented, as well as of those that were implemented. It is necessary to go further than that, so we have already started preparing for the revision of these Action Plans," the Ministry of European Integration and the Negotiating Team have stated.
They recall that two weeks ago, at the initiative of Minister Jadranka Joksimović and the Ministry of European Integration, the Government of the Republic of Serbia has adopted a decision on the revision of the National Programme for Adoption of the Acquis (NPAA), which is an additional reason supporting such harmonisation.
The Ministry of European Integration and the Negotiating Team have said that civil society organizations are notified on these plans, decisions and measures during each regular meeting.
"The fulfilment of the Action Plans for Chapters 23 and 24 is currently the subject of an analysis of the European Commission, which is preparing a report on it (Non-paper) for November. Our reports to the European Commission, on the basis of which the Commission conducts its further work, were firstly presented to the civil society, which could get acquainted with them and, of course, comment on them," the Ministry and the Negotiating Team have stated.
"These comments are always welcome, and they very often correct some of the omissions that we make, since our perspectives are not necessarily the same," as stated by these institutions.
"Unfortunately, we were not able to offer our comments or these information before the publishing of this report by prEUgovor, so we had to do that in this form," reads the response of the line Ministry and the Negotiating Team.
(Source: Tanjug)
