{"id":459311,"date":"2026-07-08T18:52:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T16:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/07\/08\/bene-ucraina-e-moldavia-preoccupa-la-serbia-la-valutazione-delleurocamera-sui-progressi-dei-tre-verso-lue\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T19:43:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T17:43:17","slug":"good-news-for-ukraine-and-moldova-but-concerns-over-serbia-the-european-parliaments-assessment-of-the-three-countries-progress-towards-the-eu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/07\/08\/good-news-for-ukraine-and-moldova-but-concerns-over-serbia-the-european-parliaments-assessment-of-the-three-countries-progress-towards-the-eu\/","title":{"rendered":"Good news for Ukraine and Moldova, but concerns over Serbia: the European Parliament\u2019s assessment of the three countries\u2019 progress towards the EU"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 Ukraine, Moldova and Serbia are three cases that show either progress or setbacks in their path towards European Union membership. The European Parliament\u2019s plenary session in Strasbourg today (8 July) <\/span> discussed and voted on the annual progress reports on the three countries\u2019 path towards the EU. The bottom line remains <\/span><\/span>a merit-based process in which<\/span> the three candidate countries must adhere to reforms and democratic values. <\/span><\/p>\n

The assessment is positive<\/a> for Ukraine<\/a>.<\/span> It is emphasised that it is necessary to \u201cwork to strengthen the future security of Ukraine and the European continent\u201d and to take account of Russia\u2019s interference. Consequently, with 460 votes in favour, 136 against, and 59 abstentions, MEPs have welcomed the opening, in June, of the first thematic cluster of accession negotiations and expressed the hope that the other negotiating chapters will be opened shortly. The European Parliament also praised Kyiv\u2019s efforts to \u201cstrengthen its democratic institutions and safeguard the separation of powers during the war,\u201d in particular the progress made in reforming the judicial system and combating corruption. \u201cThe continuation of judicial reforms and the unhindered work of anti-corruption institutions remain essential to making progress on the path to accession and meeting citizens\u2019 expectations<\/strong><\/span>,\u201d explained the MEP from the European People\u2019s Party (EPP) and rapporteur for the report, Michael Gahler<\/strong>. MEPs also rejected previous pressure from the US administration calls for Ukraine to hold elections while the war with Moscow is ongoing. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Moldavia <\/a>has also been praised for the progress made on reforms linked to accession to the European Union, including justice and anti-corruption<\/strong>, \u201cdespite ongoing foreign interference led by Russia.\u201d The vote was 505 in favour, 115 against, and 45 abstentions. Parliament welcomed the opening of accession negotiations on the \u201ckey clusters\u201d, urging Member States within the Council to open the others without further delay. MEPs also reiterated their call for Russia to withdraw all military personnel, equipment, and ammunition from Transnistria.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The view expressed by the chamber was quite different from that regarding the results reported by Serbia<\/b><\/a>. Although the Serbian government continues to assert that EU accession is its strategic objective, the European Parliament believes its actions demonstrate the opposite<\/strong><\/span>. In the report on Belgrade, adopted with 468 votes in favour, 116 against, and 79 abstentions, MEPs emphasised that there is \u201ca persistent gap between Serbia\u2019s legislative alignment with EU standards and the effective implementation of reforms.\u201d In the Parliament\u2019s view, negotiations should only proceed once \u201cmeasurable and sustainable progress has been made in areas such as the rule of law, free and fair elections, the fight against corruption and organised crime, the independence of the judiciary, freedom of the press, public administration reform, and improvements to the functioning of democratic institutions.\u201d The European Parliament therefore expressed concern at the Commission\u2019s \u201cconciliatory\u201d approach towards Serbia. It went on to call for any slowdown in the pace and intensity of reforms in Serbia to be taken into account in the financial support the EU provides under its pre-accession funding instruments. Furthermore, in the chapter on Serbia, Kosovo is a key issue. Here, for the Parliament, the normalisation of Belgrade\u2019s relations with Pristina is a condition for the support provided under the reform and growth plan. MEPs also condemned \u201cSerbia\u2019s close ties with Russia and the intensification of security and defence cooperation with China<\/a>,\u201d emphasising that \u201cfull alignment with the EU\u2019s common foreign and security policy remains a non-negotiable requirement for accession.\u201d This also includes alignment with the EU\u2019s restrictive measures against Russia.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Strasbourg, the plenary session called for the opening of negotiation chapters with Kyiv and Chi\u0219in\u0103u, while postponing those with Belgrade until the country has made progress on democracy and the rule of law<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7908,"featured_media":459279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[25802,28925,34760,34761,27334,25755,34533,34714],"class_list":["post-459311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-accession-serbia-en","tag-elezioni-russia","tag-elezioni-ucraina","tag-enlargement","tag-news-parliament-en","tag-moldavia","tag-plenaria-a-strasburgo"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":459312,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459311\/revisions\/459312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}