Foto: BETAPHOTO/European Commission/Etienne Ansotte/MOThe new European Commission report, published at the end of October, shows that Serbia is still making very slow progress with the implementation of reforms in the accession process. This pace is in increasing contrast to the intensified EU enlargement policy following the Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2022.

The Report's findings show that reforms in the past decade were slow, incomplete and insufficiently effective. Serbia is still halfway to membership, with marginal improvements, while the average annual progress in 2024 was the lowest so far. No progress was recorded in a record nine chapters, and in the areas of public administration reform and freedom of expression in Cluster 1.

In Chapter 23 (Judiciary and Fundamental Rights), Serbia again received only a passing grade (2 out of 5) for overall readiness and annual progress, while in Chapter 24 (Justice, Freedom and Security) progress is noticeable - the readiness grade increased by half a point and a grade of 3 for progress was repeated. And yet, when it comes to these key areas, Serbia is losing the race to most of the EU membership candidates in its neighborhood.

In the recommendations for fundamental rights in this year's report, the European Commission emphasized the importance of implementing previous recommendations and the necessity of allocating appropriate human and financial resources for the protection of human rights, highlighting the areas of anti-discrimination, violence against women and children, which largely coincides with the comments in all prEUgovor Alarm reports.

The full comment of the prEUgovor coalition on the new European Commission report can be viewed HERE.