Miscevic: We know obligations in EU integration process well

BELGRADE - Serbia understands its obligations in the EU integration process well and will continue to align its positions to those of the EU, says Serbia's chief EU negotiator Tanja Miscevic.

"The gradual alignment to the joint positions of the EU foreign and security policy will continue because we have undertaken that responsibility with the signing and the coming into force of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement. I have no doubt that we will become closer to those positions every day because EU membership is our strategic orientation, and we understand our obligations in the EU integration process well," Miscevic told Monday's issue of Vecernje novosti.

Serbia is completely ready for the opening of Chapter 32 on financial control, for which it has the support of all EU member states except Germany, which wants Chapter 35 - on the normalisation of ties between Belgrade and Pristina - to be one of the first chapters opened, she said.

Asked if the opening of the chapter is conditional on consenting to Kosovo being given a seat in the UN and signing a peace agreement with Pristina, Miscevic responded that the condition is the implementation of the Brussels Agreement and that there is no mention whatsoever of Kosovo's membership in the UN, and added that it would not be possible to request that from Serbia.

"The obligation from the entire process, under the Negotiation framework, is an agreement on comprehensive normalisation, not a peace agreement," she noted.

Miscevic said that, immediately after the formation of the government, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic expressed readiness for dialogue with Pristina at the highest political level, but that the negotiations came to a standstill due to a...