Lawmakers from Serbia’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) said they sought a dialogue with a visiting European Parliament (EP) delegation on Friday, but were denied the opportunity.
SNS parliamentarian Marina Raguš said the ruling majority was willing to discuss its mistakes with the delegation during a parliamentary meeting, but instead received what she described as a “verdict” in the form of an EP resolution on Serbia.
“You want to see a minimally balanced position, based on facts. Instead, you got a judgment. Against that resolution, 180 MEPs objected, 79 refused to be present in the chamber, and over 100 voted against it. That dialogue we did not get,” Raguš told reporters.
She criticized the EP mission for arriving 30 minutes late, shortening the meeting, and showing what she described as “disrespect,” adding that the delegation seemed to only listen to opposition lawmakers.
“And even behind hostile lines, channels of communication open. But this was a message: ‘We won’t listen to you, we only listen to the opposition,’ because in that resolution we recognized opposition quotes,” Raguš said.
Raguš described the delegation’s conduct as “a shame” and insisted the experience reflected poorly on the EP mission rather than Serbia’s ruling majority. “No foreign mission will dictate who governs here or attempt to overturn the constitutionally guaranteed legal order. The time for responsibility is here,” she said.
She also emphasized that the current majority does not and will not comply with the EP mission’s expectations, citing Serbia’s stance on Kosovo independence and opposition to sanctions on Russia.
Raguš criticized the resolution’s author, EP rapporteur Tonino Picula, saying he could not be objective. “The rapporteur for Serbia is not impartial; he declared his position when he posed in a uniform of the ‘Crni Mambi’ and celebrated Operation Storm,” she said, referring to Croatian military operations during the 1990s.
During the meeting, ruling party MPs also presented the EP delegation with what they called a “chronology of protests” over the past year, detailing more than 29,000 unauthorized gatherings, over 700 “completely destroyed” SNS offices, and physical attacks and threats against party members. “We received no response to this, which constitutes a criminal offense in all EU countries—political discrimination,” Raguš said.
The visit by the nine-member European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET) delegation aims to assess reforms needed for Serbia’s EU accession. Delegates separately met with both the ruling majority and opposition parties, including five pro-European opposition groups that agreed to coordinate with the EU in late December.
Serbian Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabić also criticized the delegation, saying it “does not represent the spirit of the European Parliament, nor European values,” accusing it of “interfering brutally and inappropriately in Serbia’s internal affairs” and siding with opposition groups seeking to disrupt society.
Opposition parties, meanwhile, called for EU sanctions on specific SNS officials and linked proposed funding conditions to stricter criteria for Serbia’s EU accession, citing concerns over electoral fairness, media independence, and alleged state-sponsored repression.