Gozi: Vucic Is the Main Obstacle to Serbia's EU Path

The secretary general of the European Democratic Party and Member of the European Parliament, Sandro Gozi, assessed on Wednesday, July 9, that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is the main obstacle to the country’s European path. The message came from Brussels, at a moment when the pro-European bloc is intensifying pressure ahead of a new electoral cycle, and the subject is not the shortage of reforms on paper but, as Gozi puts it, the top of the government itself.

His argument is simple and deliberately provocative. Serbia, he says, is not slowed by the complexity of constitutional matters or a sluggish pace of aligning with the Union’s legal framework, but by the political will of the regime. He added concrete accusations: that a sound cannon was used, and that gangs close to the ruling party threaten journalists, students and political opponents.

Accusations From Brussels and the Government’s Reply

Gozi did not act alone. The Platform for a European Serbia, a coalition of pro-European actors, said the same day that the regime is unable to take even a symbolic step toward the Union, such as opening Cluster 3, which covers chapters on competitiveness and growth. The message is clear: the problem is not technical but substantive, and it concerns free media, electoral conditions and the independence of institutions.

The government rejects such assessments. Officials at the top of the state insist that European Union membership is Serbia’s strategic goal and that work on that path is continuous. As proof, they cite recent changes to the judicial laws, which, in their reading, are precisely the answer to objections about judicial independence. Belgrade thus shifts the dispute onto the terrain of procedure and statistics, while Brussels insists on politics and practice.

That difference in language is not accidental. When the opposition and part of the European Parliament speak of a sound cannon, thuggery and pressure on students, they are speaking about legitimacy. When the government replies with the number of adopted laws and opened chapters, it is speaking about the technical mechanics of accession. The two sides, then, are not arguing about the same thing, and that is where the deadlock lies.

Do Reforms on Paper Lead to Cluster 3?

The core of Gozi’s message is that cosmetics do not open clusters. A change of law that does not change how institutions behave remains, by that logic, ink on paper that the European Commission has long known how to distinguish from enforcement. If so, the opening of Cluster 3 will not arrive as a reward for adopted amendments, but only when Brussels judges that electoral conditions and media freedom have measurably improved.

The domestic opposition argues that the stability the government routinely cites as its trump card cannot come from control but from free elections and independent institutions. The government, for its part, presents that same stability as the precondition for any negotiation with the Union. Both sides, you will notice, summon Europe as a witness, but each for its own version of the story.

For now only one thing is certain: pressure from Brussels is rising, the electoral cycle is drawing closer, and the formal steps the government announces will be measured not by their number but by their effect. One question remains open, and neither Gozi nor Belgrade has the same answer to it yet. Will the government’s next move be a new law, or the first visible shift in practice that Brussels is demanding?