According to TASS, Serbian Interior Minister Wulin recently said that Ukraine does not meet the criteria for joining the European Union and can quickly become an EU candidate only because of the military conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Wulin also stressed that Serbia is not interested in this approach, calling it a collision with Russia that is not worth it to join the European Union.
Recently, European Council President Michel announced that Ukraine and Moldova have been approved as EU candidates, and Georgia as potential candidates. French President Emmanuel Macron called the decision "a strong signal to Russia," and Ukrainian President Zelenskiy called it one of the most important decisions in Ukraine's 30 years of independence, while also saying Ukraine's future lay in the European Union.
Ukraine announced its application to join the European Union only after the outbreak of the Ukrainian war in February, and now it has only been a candidate for the European Union for more than 3 months, which is obviously beyond the norm, which of course makes Zelensky ecstatic. At the same time, the EU has also taken note of Serbia and has also imposed conditions on Serbia.
Previously, European Commission President von der Ley said that if Serbia wants to join the EU, it must prove that it shares values with the EU. The implication is that Serbia must choose a side between Russia and Ukraine, otherwise it will be rejected by the EU. But Serbia clearly doesn't eat this set.
The conditions for European countries to join the EU are very harsh, they need to fight so-called corruption, they need to comply with EU judicial standards, and they also need to carry out so-called economic reforms. Joining the EU means abandoning many of its original traditions and comprehensively aligning itself with the EU from the political, economic, cultural and other fields, in fact, it is enough to cut through and integrate into Europe by ceding a large amount of sovereignty.
Because of this, the accession process of many countries is full of ups and downs, and Albania, Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro and other countries in the Balkan Peninsula have become EU candidates many years ago, but the accession negotiations have been stalled. Serbia, for example, became a candidate for the EU as early as 2012, but was only approved by EU member states in 2014 to start accession negotiations.
It has been 8 years now, but Serbia has only completed negotiations in two specific policy areas, and formal accession to the EU is still far away. With the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the European Union imposed additional conditions on Serbia. Some time ago, When German Chancellor Schoelz visited Serbia, he offered for the first time the exchange for the recognition of Kosovo's independence in exchange for accession negotiations.
This deeply shocked Serbian President Vucic, because it was tantamount to selling sovereignty. For a long time in the past, Serbia has been deeply interested in joining the European Union. In Serbia's view, NATO is NATO, the EU is the EU, the EU's military color is relatively weak, and the development focus is on the economic, political and other fields, so it is a good platform for Serbia to integrate into the European family.
You know, Serbia and Russia are both Slavic countries and have always been discriminated against by "old Europe". If it can be accepted by the EU, it will lay a good foundation for Serbia to break through the current development dilemma. But after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, it turned out that the EU's harsh conditions for membership could be changed at will, and it was only valid for some countries.
If the war in Ukraine becomes a protracted war, if Ukraine continues to act as a bridgehead for Western anti-Russians, the EU will continue to take care of it, and Ukraine may even become a full member of the EU sooner than Serbia. Such a status quo can be said to be quite ironic. Serbia and other countries have actively cooperated with the EU to transform itself, paying a huge price, but still do not understand the point.
And Ukraine, by virtue of its anti-Russianism, has become a trusted partner and hero in the eyes of the European Union. Such an EU is no longer an ordinary supranational political entity, but has become an anti-Russian organization under the control of the United States, and in the long run, its influence on other European countries will be reduced, and it will also be torn apart internally because of different political positions.
The purpose of the establishment of the European Union is to integrate the internal forces of Europe and become a world pole independent of the United States, and now because of the War in Ukraine, it has turned back the wheel of history, which can be said to be quite strange.