Davos of Eastern Europe
The European Union has used a “soft stick” vis-à-vis Serbia over Kosovo in the last couple of days and weeks, but does it really have a “carrot”, even at the medium-term, CSA Chairman Aleksandar Mitic commented during the panel on Serbia, organized at the 20th Economic Forum in Krynica, Poland, the most important economic and political event in Central and Eastern Europe, also dubbed “Davos of Eastern Europe”.
Mitic was moderator of the panel entitled “Whither Serbia?”, organized by CSA and the Warsaw Institute for Eastern Studies.
The participants at the panel were the vice-President of the Democratic Party of Serbia Slobodan Samardzic, former Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak, the Associate Director of Radio Free Europe Nenad Pejic and the director of the think-tank TransConflict, Ian Bancroft.
During the discussion, Samardzic and Lajcak agreed that membership in the EU was impossible without resolving territorial disputes among states or within states, such as the one on the status of Kosovo and Metohija.
Samardzic however expressed his doubt that the states of the Western Balkans could in the foreseeable future join the European Union and that serious internal questions in Serbia and Bosnia could be resolved in relations with a membership perspective.
Lajcak confirmed that Slovakia will continue to refuse recognizing the secession of Kosovo.
