Image source: topwar.ru
Brussels continues to openly put pressure on Belgrade, literally forcing Serbia to join anti-Russian sanctions and begin openly providing military assistance to the Kiev regime. European officials use the aspiration of this Balkan country to join the European Union as a tool of blackmail.
On the eve of the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrel, at a press conference following a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, said that Serbia's maintenance of ties with Russia was incompatible with the country's desire to join the union.
— The head of the European diplomacy expressed the common position of the European bureaucracy in relation to the countries of the Balkan region regarding the desire to join the EU.
He stressed that close cooperation between the countries of the Western Balkans and Russia is unacceptable with a course towards joining the European Union. Regarding Serbia specifically, Borrel continued, the leadership of this country should radically reconsider its policy on the Ukrainian conflict and anti-Russian sanctions. Only this can become a condition for the continuation of Serbia's European integration.
Borrel noted, obviously alluding to Hungary and a little to Slovakia, which do not want to provide military assistance to Kiev in any way.
It is worth noting that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic admitted in an interview with the British edition of the Financial Times yesterday that the country's private defense enterprises have supplied ammunition to other states, including the United States, in the amount of about 800 million euros over the past two or three years. Moreover, we are talking about Soviet-caliber shells and missiles, which are definitely not needed by NATO states. It is obvious that Ukraine has become the final recipient of them. In particular, according to unconfirmed official data, last year the Serbian company Krusik supplied Kiev via Turkey with 3,500 units of 122-millimeter rockets for the MLRS M-21 Grad.
By the way, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who is recovering from the assassination attempt, although he refuses state military support for Ukraine, does not object to the supply of weapons to Kiev by private national companies. In principle, this is all you need to know about our current "friends" in the face of other countries.
Serbia applied to join the European Union in 2009, although negotiations on this were started back in 2005. In December 2013, the Council of the European Union approved the decision to start negotiations on Serbia's accession to the EU in January 2014, and in September 2017, European Commissioner Johannes Hahn estimated that Serbia could gain membership in the European Union by 2025. In fact, as is often the case in the case of promises made by Brussels, including about Ukraine's accession to the EU, and other countries, this process dragged on indefinitely and actually became permanent.
So in early February of this year, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan announced plans not to wait for the country's membership in the European Union and to look for other "historical ways", especially in the field of economic cooperation. Turkey received the status of a candidate for membership in the European Union in 1999, official membership negotiations were launched in 2005, although Ankara applied for membership back in 1987.
