Serbian Deputy Prime Minister for EU Integration Bozidar Djelic stated Wednesday that Serbia stands a good chance of submitting the completed EC questionnaire to EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele on January 31.

"The Serbian administration has been working hard and the process is about to be completed," Djelic told Tanjug.

He said that the remaining questions should be answered this week, and then, in mid-January, a meeting will be held with Serbian parliament's Committee for EU Integration and government's Council for EU Integration which will consider the answers before they are officially adopted. After that, in the first and second quarter of 2011, the European Commission will send missions which would not only attest the veracity of answers, but also suggest some changes, he noted.

According to Djelic, Serbia will then launch the action plan, passed by the Serbian government in late December 2010, which envisages adoption of numerous vital laws. "In any case, we will do everything in our power to get a date for starting negotiations on EU integration, not only a candidate status at the December EU summit," he said.

As regards Serbia's cooperation with the ICTY, Djelic noted that quite a big pressure is being imposed on Serbia, and that the Netherlands, as well as some other European states, made it clear that the best way to prove the country's willingness to cooperate is to apprehend and extradite the remaining two ICTY fugitives.

"In Serbia's case, there is a particularly sensitive issue of Kosovo, whose unilaterally declared independence Serbia will never recognize," Djelic emphasized adding that Serbia has to resolve the Kosovo issue in order to become a fully-fledged member of the European Union, and that the announced Belgrade-Pristina dialogue should help in that process

. "The EU accession is in the national interest of Serbia and it is our duty to meet the necessary requirements as soon as possible," Djelic said.