Serbs back EU integration, but reject NATO

Relations with NATO have improved but Belgrade -- which has close ties to Russia == adopted a policy of military neutrality in 2007.

BELGRADE, February 10, 2010 (AFP) - Over 60 percent of Serbian citizens support their country's possible integration into the European Union, but reject any future NATO membership, a survey released Wednesday showed.

Some 62 percent of Serbs would support a Serbian bid to join the EU if they were asked in a referendum, while 22 percent said they would vote against it, the poll by TNS Medium Gallup agency showed.

However only 20 percent said they would support any effort from Belgrade to become a NATO member, while 61 percent of those polled would be against it, according to the survey quoted by Tanjug news agency.

The Serbian branch of the Gallup agency said it polled 1,200 people in direct interviews in early February.

In December Serbia officially applied for a EU membership, after Brussels introduced a visa-free travel regime for the citizens of the Balkan republic and unfroze a free trade accord following Belgrade's increased cooperation with The Hague-based war crimes tribunal.

Belgrade hopes to be granted candidate status this year and join the EU in 2014.

Public opinion is strongly against NATO membership, mostly due to NATO's 1999 bombing campaign. The alliance bombed targets in Serbia in a bid to halt the crackdown of late strongman Slobodan Milosevic's regime on ethnic Albanian rebels in the breakaway Kosovo province.

Since then relations with NATO have improved but Belgrade -- which has close ties to Russia == adopted a policy of military neutrality in 2007.

The war ended after 78 days as Serbian forces were driven out of Kosovo and the province put under control of UN. In February 2008, Kosovo unilaterally proclaimed independence from Serbia, a move still rejected by Belgrade.