Serbia’s president dissolves parliament and sets date for early legislative vote – as it happened

Aleksandar Vučić, the Serbian president, speaking in Belgrade today. Photograph: Andrej Čukić/EPA

4.24pm GMT

Summary of the day

• Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, dissolved parliament and formally set a parliamentary election for 17 December. Local elections in some municipalities will be held the same day.

• The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, visited Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she said its “future is in the European Union as a single, united and sovereign country”. She also said “we cannot accept” backsliding on values.

• Borjana Krišto, the chair of the council of ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has said Von der Leyen’s visit was an “important step” for its accession path.

• The German MEP Viola von Cramon-Taubadel said Europe must “call a spade a spade – we need democratic Serbia, not further appeasement of Vučić”.

• The Dutch MEP Thijs Reuten said that “in the past week alone even the staunchest believers in the failed EU-US strategy of appeasement of Serbian president Vučić must have had numerous wake-up calls”.

• The Slovak MEP Vladimír Bilčík said the EU’s unity on enlargement is “unprecedented” and “the ball is also very much in the hands of our partners”.

• Corina Stratulat, the head of the European politics and institutions programme at the European Policy Centre, said that a roadmap was still missing on how to actually deliver the EU’s membership promises to the western Balkans.

• Bojan Elek, the deputy director of the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, said relations between Serbia and the EU “remain ambivalent” but that developments suggest a “rapprochement” between Belgrade and Pristina.

• Engjellushe Morina, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that Von der Leyen’s western Balkans trip “comes at a crucial moment” and that the bloc’s growth plan for the region “is clearly an attempt from the side of the EU to come up with a credible offer for the region on the eve of (hopefully) major political decisions”.

EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, (C-R) and the chairperson of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Borjana Kristo (2-R), pose with beneficiaries of the Regional Housing Program (RHP) during a ceremony marking the handover of new apartments for 27 families, in Vogooca, a suburb of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Regional Housing Program is mostly financed by the EU. Photograph: Fehim Demir/EPA

Updated at 5.02pm GMT

3.43pm GMT

Max Bergmann, the director for Europe at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has cautioned that the EU “will not enlarge” unless the bloc reforms.

Reform and enlargement have always gone together. One creates momentum for the other.

The EU will not enlarge, whether Ukraine or the Balkans, unless there is EU reform. Reform and enlargement have always gone together. One creates momentum for the other. Countries opposed to reform are defacto opposed to Ukraine membership. https://t.co/pAAGEnkarJ

— Max Bergmann (@maxbergmann) November 1, 2023

Updated at 3.49pm GMT