2023. 05. 10.
The European Parliament today adopted in plenary session the 2022 Country Report for Serbia. Fidesz MEPs voted against the report due to its bias and absurd claims. Hungary remains the biggest supporter of Serbia’s membership, but such reports do not serve to speed up accession negotiations.
MEP Kinga Gál, President of the Fidesz delegation to the European Parliament, stressed in her plenary speech that Serbia is the main stabilising force and key country in the Western Balkans region, and therefore the country’s accession as soon as possible is in the interest of Hungary and Europe. “The country has been waiting for progress in the accession process for years, and is striving to meet the EU conditions.” The ideologically based criticisms included in the report could fundamentally distort the integration prospects of Serbia and the whole region, as well as trust in the EU institutions”, MEP Kinga Gál said. She noted that instead of constructive cooperation, the European Parliament is deliberately destroying its relations with Serbia.
According to MEP Kinga Gál, it is also unacceptable that the left-wing majority of the European Parliament attacks Hungary on ideological grounds in an enlargement report and makes unfounded criticisms of Hungary, which is evidence of its Hungarophobia.
Fidesz MEP Andor Deli, of Vojvodina origin, stressed that Serbia’s accession to the EU is of great importance for the Hungarian community of Vojvodina. He added that “in the past, the European Parliament was the EU institution that was most determined to speed up the accession process and to strengthen mutual trust and respect between Serbia and the EU, but this never excluded the possibility of making benign criticisms when circumstances warranted it”.
“However, mutual trust and respect are an extreme rarity in the European Parliament these days, and I fear that this report, both with its biased content and its overly critical wording, will cause lasting damage to relations between Serbia and the European Parliament. The citizens of Serbia deserve much better than this”, MEP Deli concluded.