Foreign Minister: Room to Maneuver Has Narrowed, Clear Alignment Increasingly Being Expected

Marko Djuric (mfa.gov.rs)

Serbian Foreign Minister Marko Djuric said on Dec. 21 that the key pillars of Serbian foreign policy remained clear and unchanged: European Union integration as a strategic goal, military neutrality as the foundation of security policy and a multi-vector approach to allow cooperation with various global actors while safeguarding the country's interests.

"The greatest challenge is the fact that the world is moving fast from a unipolar to a multipolar structure. Room to maneuver has narrowed, and states are increasingly expected to align clearly and exclusively. Serbia, however, is striving to build relations pragmatically and rationally - where interests overlap - with clearly defined red lines when it comes to sovereignty, territorial integrity and security," Djuric told the Politika daily in an interview.

He stressed that "full and equal membership in the European Union remained a foreign-policy priority for Serbia," adding that the process was not solely a technical matter today, but also political to a great extent.

"Though Serbia meets the necessary conditions in certain areas, the pace of the process also depends on internal dynamics within the Union itself - from bilateral matters to the broader security assessments of European partners," Djuric said, stressing that the Kosovo issue remained a special and lasting challenge, not only in political and security terms, but also as a factor affecting regional dynamics, international credibility and internal social cohesion.