THE FOLLOWING IS THE SPEECH OF THE SPEAKER OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA IN ITS ENTIRETY:

Dear Prime Minister,
Dear Ms Joksimovic,
Ambassador Giaufret,
Dear Ms Dragojlovic,

I would like to thank the National Convention for organising this meeting and I am glad to be able to be your host again in the National Assembly, you all remember that last year we were forced to have this meeting online.

On behalf of the National Assembly, I would like to thank you all for your cooperation in the past year, in which we had a lot of work to do in terms of Serbia's European integration. My assessment is that we have done an excellent job and in the Annual Progress Report we see that the European Commission shares the same opinion. The Report we received recently is the most positive in the last few years and we can be rightly satisfied with what has been achieved. However, it also reminds us those areas in which we will continue with reforms.

You know that the parliament is a place where all our efforts in terms of meeting the criteria for full EU membership cross paths and in this regard I would like to remind you of several important processes that we have all carried out together over the past year and which have, when all is said and done, decisively contributed to the European Commission’s overall positive assessment.

First of all, I am thinking of the changes to the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia in the part concerning the judiciary which has been one of the most important issues that the European Commission draws our attention to when it comes to the area of the rule of law. We are at the very end of this process and I am convinced that we will complete it within the current parliamentary legislature’s mandate, as required by the very procedure for Constitutional amendment. I am sure that when we make the final decision on the Constitutional amendment, it will be hailed in the European Commission’s next report as a great progress in the area of the rule of law.

In this complex process, a very intensive and wide public debate was conducted at a large number of public hearings organised both in the National Assembly and abroad, where the most eminent university authorities and other experts, representatives of judges and prosecutors associations, our state institutions, as well as a large number of lawyers and civil society organisations dealing with the rule of law contributed to the future constitutional text.

We came to a solution in constant cooperation with the Venice Commission which gave a positive opinion to our proposals, so I am convinced that we will soon, in Parliament and then in a referendum, have new solutions regarding the judiciary, with the widest possible professional and political consensus.

I would like to point out that, regardless of the positive opinion of the Venice Commission to the previous text of the constitutional amendments, it was necessary to have additional consultations. Together with Prime Minister Ana Brnabic and the Minister of Justice Maja Popovic, I held a series of meetings with representatives of the judges and public prosecutors who were dissatisfied with the earlier text, which is why it was decided to restart the constitutional change procedure to come to a consensus on the issue. The Committee on Constitutional and Legislative Issues had organised a series of hearings and set up a the Working Group for the Drafting of the Act to amend the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, and I personally took part in the Venice Commission, which contributed to the institution’s giving a positive opinion. I would like to remind you that the Committee on Constitutional and Legislative Issues should determine the final text of the constitutional amendments, which is to be followed by a discussion on the Law on Referendum.

Also, we have recently completed another important process - the inter-party dialogue on electoral conditions. In part, we cooperated with the delegation of the European Parliament, and in order to ensure the greatest possible support and consensus on these issues, we also had a dialogue with those parties and movements that did not want the participation of foreign institutions in this agreement.

Although this is not a regular National Assembly activity, we paid the dialogue the greatest possible attention, with the President of the Republic participating in the process on several occasions, so that in the end we can be satisfied with everything we have done, because we have reached a solution with the broadest consensus. And that was the goal at the beginning of the dialogue, even though at the time it seemed unattainable to many.

That is why I am convinced that we will organise the next elections, in the spring of next year, with the highest democratic standards and a broad consensus of all the participants in terms of their content and control.

In the past year, the Parliament has made several important decisions previously marked by the European Commission as areas in which progress is expected. First of all, I mean the large reduction in the number of laws passed by urgent procedure, in which we enjoyed excellent coordination with the Government. The Code of Conduct has been amended in line with GRECO recommendations and an Ethics Commission was recently set up.

Like last year, when we did it for the first time, I can announce that this time we will have a plenary debate on the European Commission’s Annual Report. It turned out that in this way the National Assembly contributes, not only formally but materially as well, to fulfilling the EU accession criteria because it has the opportunity to consider all the aspects of the Report in an open debate and demonstrate that it treats the assessments received from the European Commission very responsibly and at the highest institutional level.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to convey our common belief that Serbia should open two negotiating clusters, as soon as possible, by the end of this year. Not only because the European Commission recommended it to the member states, but because Serbia has really made great progress in its reforms and has long deserved it to be formally acknowledged through a greater number of open chapters, i.e. clusters.

I would like to thank the National Convention for organising this Plenary Session and for continuing the very good cooperation on the common goal in the previous year, as I am sure that we will continue to do in the year to come.

Thank you!”