Belgrade, 3/6/2020

PUBLIC STATEMENT

Curbing the departure from the EU 
 

Forum for Security and Democracy, with regards to the upcoming elections for the Serbian National Assembly, wishes to express its concern by noting that they are to be take place at a time in which Serbia’s commitment to integrations and EU membership is at its most tenuous point and the public support for them at its lowest (!) – both of which are a consequence of long term external, and even more so internal, pressures which even some of the political parties that positioned themselves as advocates for Serbia’s EU integrations have buckled under. 

It is for this reason that FSD calls on all political parties, non-government organizations and civil society groups to during the election campaign give due attention and public support, first and foremost, to those political options that politically unequivocally advocate for Serbia’s membership in the EU, as well as further integrations with NATO, and settlement of all open disputes with its neighbors.

FSD specifically underlines the necessity to pay attention to the media coverage of the election campaign and to expose and unmask at every possible opportunity the forcing of obscure topics that aim to further establish Serbia’s political straying away from the EU as mainstream election topics – in particular the advocating for a frozen Kosovo conflict, support for the further deterioration of relations neighboring countries who have opted for EU and NATO membership or are already members of either or both and Serbia’s international policy masquerading politics of neutrality which in actuality solely serves to deter Serbia away from the EU and the West -  and also notes that insistence on those policies in particular isn’t unique to the ruling coalition!

FSD, last but not least, expresses its view that the so-called „boycott announcement“   by the Alliance for Serbia is but a continuation of a wrong policy which, under its guise of anti-authoritarianism, is no longer even trying to conceal its culpability in the strengthening of anti-European anti-Western sentiments in Serbia.

The primary goal of small genuinely pro-European parties in Serbia which can’t hope to achieve a major victory in the upcoming elections, regardless of how they will run their campaigns, in the view of FSD, is to through participation in elections, even under these conditions, legitimately and by taking part in parliamentary proceedings, keep afloat the policies and ideas that won’t allow for a long-term roadblock on Serbia’s journey towards the EU that would lead to an even deeper self-isolation of the country and it’s entrenchment within the undemocratic Asian despotism block of nations.