Dacic reminded the attending that the European Commission’s annual report on Serbia was considered in the plenum in December last year, which was the first time that the National Assembly considered a document by the European Union institutions on Serbia.

"With today's sitting, we are already paving the way for a good and useful democratic practice of talking about all the important positions of the European Union institutions in an open debate our parliament. I am sure that this will have a positive impact on our EU accession process overall because it shows that we threat the attitudes and recommendations of the highest EU institutions as responsibly as possible by giving them due attention in our parliament", said Dacic.

He thanked Vladimir Bilcik, European Parliament’s Standing Rapporteur on Serbia and the author of the draft resolution, for his work and the positive intention he showed towards Serbia in drafting the report, to which more than 400 amendments were submitted finally resulting in a text that differed significantly from the proposal originally submitted to the European Parliament.

The National Assembly Speaker said it was good that in a significant part of the Resolution the European Parliament noted the progress of the reforms in Serbia, especially in terms of economic development, regional cooperation, dialogue with Pristina, the position of national minorities and minority social groups. However, he pointed out the critical and even negative assessments made in the Resolution, because he believes that most of them are baseless.

“Expressing a critical opinion is not a problem, it is an integral part of our relationship, what is important here is to separate critical opinion from material untruths expressed about certain topics, so I think it is important, when talking about certain texts of the various resolutions adopted in Brussels, that they follow the real situation in Serbia, and I think that today's debate should draw the our colleagues’ attention to the shortcomings present in this Resolution that harm Serbia and the European Parliament as well", said Dacic. That is why he emphasised that Serbia is open to conversation and providing adequate information so that everyone in Brussels has the opportunity to find out the factual situation on issues of vital importance for our country.

Dacic said that the Resolution notes that the practice of passing laws by urgent procedure should be stopped, which was a frequent objection of the European institutions in previous years.

"This year, we adopted the budget rebalance by urgent procedure as it was a necessity to make sure the state functioned smoothly, there were almost no other cases, but the MEPs did not notice that and apparently simply copied some earlier positions from their own and European Commission reports.

Regarding last year's state of emergency, the European Parliament’s assessments are, according to Dacic's observation, quite confusing and even incorrect. That is why he emphasised that the state of emergency was declared and called off strictly according to the Constitution.

Dacic considered as particularly problematic the part of the European Parliament Resolution that stated that the Assembly did not start work "for a long time after the announcement of the final election results, although there was a clear parliamentary majority" and stressed that all the legal deadlines were followed.

"The stand on the vaccination caused the most negative reactions. It is a message to the citizens that they should not believe their eyes, but believe the amendments to the text of the European Parliament Resolution that the vaccination and the fight against COVID-19 in Serbia are poorly organised, while all the world agencies and all the world politicians praise Serbia for this and many come from Europe to be vaccinated here ", said Dacic.

Dacic also referred to some statements regarding Kosovo-Metohija, saying that Serbia would always fulfil its obligations under the Brussels Agreement, so it is unclear why the Resolution says that everyone must fulfil their obligations. He emphasised that equating responsibility is not good, adding that every time the dialogue was stopped it was exclusively because of Pristina, never because of Serbia.

"We approached the European Parliament Resolution most seriously and we expect them to respect our objections just as responsibly. Serbia is fully committed to joining the European Union, that is our chief foreign policy priority, and that is why we want to continue in collegial cooperation with all the participants in this process, especially with the European Parliament. Our discussion today is an important part of that cooperation, even when we have objections to their work", Dacic concluded.