#Serbia: Serbian accession could 'cement peace and stability' in the Balkans

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic says his country is on track to meet a 'four-year plan' he hopes will pave the way for it become the newest EU member in 2020. He accepts membership by the end of this decade is ambitious but believes this would be a big step in cementing peace and democracy in the Balkans, writes Martin Banks.

Speaking ahead of snap Serbian elections called for 24 April, Vucic set out his stall for the next four years, saying, "I will tell you what I want to achieve".

"I want our education and health system to reach a modern European level. I want every person in Serbia to have decent job so we can eradicate poverty and offer families a higher living standard. We have to continue our fight against corruption and establish our country with one rule of law for all."

Conceding that these are 'very big challenges', Vucic, the country’s most powerful politician, added, "they are not easy but if we all stay united together we can deliver".

"For that we need another full term to continue the reforms and complete the transformation ofSerbia into a modern economy, with European living standards, which can offer a decent place for raising children."

Latest proof of the impact recent measures have had in Serbia came Friday 25 March when the outlook on the country’s credit rating was raised to positive by Moody’s Investors Service, which cited the country’s implementation of structural and fiscal reforms to help ease its debt burden.

Growth in the biggest ex-Yugoslav republic’s economy is set to more than double to 1,8% this year.

Vucic says he wants to narrow Serbia’s budget deficit and halt increases in public debt with planned measures including moving people from the public to private sector.

As well as addressing internal reform, Serbia has been hard hit by the migrant crisis as it has been a major transit point for hundreds of thousands of refugees.

With the ongoing migrant crisis engulfing the continent, Vucic also pledged to take a 'quota' of refugees as part of an EU-wide solution.

He says member states should agree to take up to 2 million genuine asylum seeker - a figure he says equates to less than half per cent of the EU population - then share them out fairly.

"That’s nothing for Europe and can even create new value economically."

Next month’s Serbian election will be the county’s third in four years and has been called two years earlier than they are actually due under the country’s constitution.

Some have criticised the decision but the PM defends the move, saying, "I wanted to cut all these topics and say, ok, now it’s your chance to create a government the people of Serbia would like to see."

"I will go with my programme which is to finish our EU homework before 2020."

A coalition around the SNS (Serbian Progressive Party) won 158 of the 250 seats in the 2014 election.

Once a hardliner for a Greater Serbia, Vucic, formerly an information and defence minister, says he is now committed to joining the EU.

Belgrade-born Vucic called the elections in a bid to cement stability as the Balkan country negotiates its accession into the EU, adding, "Serbia needs four more years of stability so that it is ready to join the EU".

Brussels has called for a pause in adding new members to the bloc and ruled out any enlargement of the bloc before 2020 even for countries that have started accession talks. But Vucic wants Serbia to position itself as a key political and economic players in Europe.

Serbia, a candidate country since 2012, formally opened EU accession talks last December. Its Balkan neighbour Croatia acceded in 2013 and Bosnia-Herzegovina this month formally applied to join.

Serbia’s negotiating procedure is similar to the one being applied to Montenegro, that Chapters 23 and 24 (on judiciary, security and human rights) are among the first to be opened and among the last to be closed, and that any possible standstill in these two chapters may affect the entire course of the talks.

In April 2014, when SNS swept to power Serbia faced a daunting economic outlook. Public debt was 64,1% of GDP and the deficit was 6,6%.

Under Vucic’s stewardship, the government set on a reform agenda and the results of these and other measures began emerging late last year.

Growth of 0,8% returned last year, after years of negative growth in the past six, and is expected to continue towards double-digit numbers in 2016 and 2017.

After peaking at 23,9% in 2012, unemployment fell from 20,9% to 17,3%. At the end of the third quarter of 2015, it stood at 16,7%.

In the last two years, some 120,000 new jobs have been created.

Despite cuts in public sector salaries the country’s wages remained stable, pointing to a healthy increase in private sector salaries in 2015, Vucic points out.

Serbia attracted €1,7 billion of foreign direct investment last year and government investment increased, resulting mainly in completing overdue infrastructure works around the country - 300 km of newly paved or reconstructed highways and new bridges.

Further evidence of improvement came with the recent World Bank’s 'Ease of Doing Business' index which indicated that Serbia has made a significant jump in two years from 91st to 59th place. Last week, Moody’s changed the outlook on Serbia’s sovereign rating from stable to positive.

"The hard work," the 46-year-old Vucic said, "is starting to pay off and there is room for optimism".

Looking to the future, he predicts, "2016 will be better for citizens, and 2017 even better, with dynamic growth as a result of the reforms and of even more in foreign investment."#

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