Djuric: EU Integration Topic at Ministerial Meeting in Luxembourg

mfa.gov.rs

Serbian Foreign Minister Marko Djuric said the topic of a June 24 meeting of European Union ministers with their Western Balkan counterparts was how to speed up and re-initialize EU integration, and that his message was that implementation of the reform agenda in 2027 was Serbia's priority.

"My message was very clear. For the new government of Serbia, carrying out the reform agenda in 2027 is the European priority. By then we want to be completely ready when it comes to both the economy, democracy, rule of law and all other aspects of importance to our full EU membership," Djuric told reporters in Luxembourg after the meeting of EU foreign ministers and Western Balkan representatives.

Asked about Serbia's non-alignment with the EU's foreign policy, Djuric replied that when it joins the EU, Serbia would share the EU's foreign policy and will then be able to influence the EU's policies.

"We want to raise the level of our alignment with European foreign policy to a higher level, but we are also asking for help in resolving issues from the past for which current generations in Serbia are not responsible, and which cannot be resolved justly without many states in the international community," he said.

Djuric said Serbia was even now contributing significantly to the European foreign security policy, taking part in European peacekeeping missions, and had voted for all U.N. resolutions supporting the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

"We have specificities due to which we do not have the same foreign policy on this issue as other European members do, but we expect them to help with normalizing relations in the region to a sufficient extent and with advancing the security situation in our region in such a way as to allow for a greater degree of alignment, while Serbia will seek a way to be as aligned as possible with the EU's foreign and security policy while protecting its national interests," Djuric said.