EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said that the “serious violence and vandalism“ on the streets of Serbia must stop immediately and criticized the insults directed at members of the European Parliament by high-ranking Serbian representatives, Serbian media reported, quoted by BTA.
“We have a problem in Belgrade. We expect the police to act appropriately and respect fundamental rights," Kos said after talks yesterday with Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger.
Kos added that statements by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Serbian Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabić, in which they insulted MEPs who attended an anti-government protest in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad on Friday, would not improve the opinion of the EU in Serbia, Beta news agency reported.
"If you call MEPs scum, it shows a dubious understanding of democracy," said Marta Kos.
Several thousand people gathered in Novi Sad on Friday to demand early elections, in the latest in a wave of student protests in Serbia sparked by the collapse of a railway station canopy in the city in November, which killed 16 people. The protesters blame corruption for the tragedy. Their demands for a transparent investigation into the tragedy and criminal accountability have grown into calls for early elections.
In his address after the Novi Sad protest, Vucic said the demonstrators were "helped by scum from the European Green Party, the worst European scum, who came to Novi Sad tonight to support this violence." He noted that the MEPs who attended the protest will be prosecuted in accordance with Serbian law.
Two parliamentary groups in the European Parliament condemned the police response to the demonstrators in Novi Sad and the insults directed at the Greens by the Serbian president.
At Friday's protest in Novi Sad, police used batons, armored vehicles and tear gas to disperse the crowd, after which a small group of masked demonstrators attacked the police cordon in front of the Faculty of Philosophy building, Radio Free Europe recalls.
The protesters accused the security forces of excessive use of force, which was denied by the police and the authorities.
Kos advised the Serbian authorities to focus on the EU membership reforms, to which they had committed to her and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.
Build an independent judiciary that will effectively fight corruption. Free the media and give them the opportunity to inform independently. Implement electoral reforms that will ensure that only the will of Serbian citizens will determine the majority in parliament, Kos said.
In her words, this is a possible way out of the crisis. She noted that democracy and the rule of law are requirements that are implicitly required to be implemented by EU candidate countries.