Vucic: Picula Continues Fight from Times when He Carried A Gun against Serbs, But Now in Different Ways

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic stated on March 18 that Croatia was attempting to stop Serbia, but that “they are not doing very well and will continue,” going on to say that he would be surprised if the European Parliament’s rapporteur for Serbia, Tonino Picula, ever said anything good about him.

“As long as he speaks badly of me, that means I am doing good for Serbia. Picula comes here allegedly with good intentions, but actually acts like in the times when he carried a gun against the Serbs and continues the fight in different ways,” Vucic stated after a meeting with representatives of the Azvirt company.

Vucic said that he was not concerned with Picula accusing him of autocracy, adding that “they speak more about themselves than about me.” He also stated that Croatians were unable to accept obvious facts and kept talking about the missing in Croatia during the 1990s war, but not about the fact that more Serbs went missing there than Croats, and went on to suggest that those missing were not humans for them.

While presenting his annual report on Serbia before the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) in Brussels on March 17, Picula stated that reforms linked with the process of EU accession were significantly slowed down in Serbia, or were regressing, especially in the fields of rule of law and democracy, and emphasized that the policy of turning a blind eye for the sake of stability, by some European actors, had not yielded results but driven the country farther away from EU membership.