Vucic: Threat of Sanctions and Stopping Path to EU Looming over Serbia

Aleksandar Vucic (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV/MO)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said that the threat of sanctions and stopping the country's European path because of its attitude toward Russia is looming over Serbia "at all times."

In his first television appearance after he won a new five-year term of office in the April 3 presidential election, Vucic reiterated late on April 7 that Serbia was the only country in Europe that had not imposed a single restrictive measure against Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine.

"We will see to it that it stays that way. We must endure all that, maintain an honest, honorable and moral course, and not have that kind of pressure that we are isolated and a pariah state, rather we proudly hold ourselves as someone who is on the European road but who will not turn their back on traditional friends," Vucic told public service RTS.

He also said that he talked with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on April 6 about gas, oil and the Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS), as well as about the conflict in Ukraine. "The conversation was good, although I cannot be completely open for understandable reasons. I cannot and will not accept Putin being called Hitler or a madman, someone who behaves hysterically. He spoke with me in a calm, rational manner and we achieved a significant amount of agreement on what we discussed," said the Serbian president.

When asked about the vote in the U.N. General Assembly, where Serbia also voted for Russia's suspension from the U.N. Human Rights Council, Vucic replied that the original decision had been for Serbia to refrain from voting. "Then you get intense pressure that has nothing to do with [anything] personal, rather they are blackmailing the country, so they say that in the coming days it will be decided whether we will be exempted from the package of sanctions regarding oil," said Vucic.