Hungarian MEPs discuss minority issues with local leaders in Serbia

The two European lawmakers are scheduled to attend the first meeting of the inter-parliamentary working groups preparing Serbia’s EU entry in Belgrade on Friday.

Gál said that a country’s EU accession does not automatically resolve all minority issues, as demonstrated in Slovakia, but “may put them into a new dimension”.

Schopflin said that preparations for EU entry, a process that lasted for eight years in Croatia, would enable Serbia to develop regulations that “truly protect minorities”.

He said that relations between Hungary and Serbia had never been so good.

Vojvodina, Serbia’s northernmost region, is inhabited by 290,000 ethnic Hungarians.