The Russian state television Russia Today will open its representative office in Serbia . It is about a TV station banned by the EU for “inciting and supporting Russian aggression” against Ukraine.
This is precisely the reason why this news did not receive a positive reaction from the representative of the European Parliament, Klemen Grošelj .
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“That is terrible news for me. It shows that Vučić is increasingly ceasing to be a pro-European politician and is becoming the opposite of that. Unfortunately, this is the reality we have in Serbia,” he says.
He points out that, during the last debate in the European Parliament, some MPs proposed that the report on Serbia should also block accession negotiations and financial support.
“After things like this that I hear, it will probably intensify in the fall. If the situation in Ukraine worsens further, there will certainly be an official call from the EP to freeze negotiations and financial resources from the EU for Serbia. Serbia is a sovereign state, but it has decided to join the community called the EU, and that is why it is difficult for us to understand that it is going against that community and has different foreign policy priorities,” emphasizes Grošelj and adds that it is very difficult to justify Serbia’s position.
“If you have ‘Russia Today’, official contacts with the Russians, these are political messages that show that Serbia is moving away from the European perspective and future and that it is moving in the direction of Turkey – that is, the status of an eternal candidate for membership. I think that is not in the interest of the residents and citizens of Serbia, but it is probably in the interest of official Serbian politics,” warns Grošelj.
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It is not enough to say that Serbia is on the European path – the media in Serbia is like in Russia
Grošelj added that the statements of the head of the Serbian state that our country is on the European path are not enough and notes that Brussels has repeatedly drawn attention to the need to move from words to actions.
“These are words. The EP has very clearly said that it no longer believes in words and that it is necessary to implement what is only talked about. This is not happening in the case of Serbia. There is a big gap between what is said and what is done. I am sure that all this is not in the interest of the citizens of Serbia. It is necessary to make a distinction between that and what is the interest of the ruling elite and the party in Serbia. If it were not in the interest of the citizens of Serbia to be part of our community, they would not live and work in the EU in such large numbers “, emphasizes Grošelj.
In response to our statement that research shows that anti-European sentiment is growing in Serbia, Grošelj points out that it should be viewed through the fact that the “Russian model” of media reporting rules in our country.
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“The media in Serbia is like the media in Russia and this is a fact that is reflected in public opinion surveys. The same is the case in Hungary and some other European countries. This only confirms that even after the last elections, unfortunately, Serbia is not a real democracy,” Grošelj concludes.
Jelisaveta Miletić: Vučić is happy that his friend Putin contacted him.
