At a joint press conference which he held together with Serbia's Prime Minister Ivica Dacic, the European Commissioner called on Serbia to continue with hard work, adding that the European Council's decision to greenlight the start of the entry talks with Serbia was a reward for the country's hard work in the past decade.

Fuele called on Serbia to appoint its chief negotiator and said that the next week the Commission would present to EU members a draft framework for accession negotiations with Serbia.

After this draft is discussed, the first inter-governmental conference is expected to be held in January 2014.

Much has been done, but great efforts are needed for the first intergovernmental conference to be held in January, possibly even earlier, Fuele said.

He also added that the screening of Serbia's reform will likely last by mid-2015.

Throughout the negotiations, the EU will keep the normalisation of the relations between Belgrade and Pristina in the focus of its attention, which is why this issue will be a part of the negotiating chapter No. 35 which will be opened at the very beginning of the talks, stay open throughout the process to be closed at the end.

Dacic told the conference that the European Union "knows that Serbia will never recognize the independence of Kosovo."

"We expect the negotiating framework not to contain formulations which would imply that Serbia must recognize Kosovo's independence. This would be absolutely unacceptable for us," the premier said.

Dacic also commented on Fuele's arrival in Serbia as a sign that Brussels "believes that Serbia will be the 29th EU member."

Croatia entered the Union on 1 July as the 28th member.

Dacic said that Serbia's chief negotiator should not be a high-profile politician but "a head of technical negotiations".

He called for the engagement of the civil society and other nongovernmental organisations into the future Serbian membership talks with the EU.