10 minutes agoLast poll: Serbs determined to give up EU on Kosovo
Periskopi(8 years ago)
(8 years ago)Over 80 per cent of Serbia's citizens would not support Kosovo's independence, even if it was a condition for Serbian state membership in the European Union, a survey by the Institute for European Affairs and the Ninamedia agency in Belgrade shows. The survey, conducted from 16 to 20 [...]
Over 80 per cent of Serbia's citizens would not support Kosovo's independence, even if it was a condition for Serbian state membership in the European Union, a survey by the Institute for European Affairs and the Ninamedia agency in Belgrade shows.
The survey, conducted from March 16th to March 20th, with 1,203 respondents surveyed, points out that a third of them would support partitioning Kosovo, while 56 per cent would not.
Kosovo's acceptance by the current government of Serbia or any future awaits 26 per cent of Serbian citizens surveyed, while 55 per cent of them consider that this will not happen.
Only 11 per cent of respondents would support Kosovo's independence as a condition for EU membership, while 81 per cent would not.
Tibor Moldova, from the Institute for European Affairs, told the Balkan Service Free Radio Europe that educated citizens are more inclined to support ideas that, according to him, would eventually choose Kosovo's status, whether positive or negative for Serbia.
“Even though 81 per cent of citizens would not support Kosovo's independence as a condition for Serbia's EU membership, when we talk about new generations, this number is for 10 per cent to 15 per cent lower”, Moldova said.
Even some citizens in Belgrade, surveyed by Radio Free Europe's Balkan Service, share the attitude of the majority showing the survey above.
Asked whether they would support Kosovo's independence as a condition to enter the EU, they say "no."
Never. Serbia without Kosovo is nobody and nothing”, Ilija Zivkovic said.
“
Survey findings are not surprising for Dragan Popovic, from the Centre for Practice Policy in Serbia.
There has never been any real debate on why Serbia has lost Kosovo, what happened there, why ties between two societies and others have been broken. In this context and adding here to increasing tensions and strengthening patriotic rhetoric in recent months, there can be no further results of the” survey, Popovic said.
In the coming weeks, Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, is expected to publicly announce his proposal for, reportedly, resolving the Kosovo problem.
Before Pristina and Belgrade is also the obligation to sign a legally binding agreement for normalising relations.
