Djuric: Balancing Foreign Policy Not Indecision but Political Maturity

Marko Djuric (BETAPHOTO/MINISTARSTVO SPOLJNIH POSLOVA SRBIJE)

Serbian Foreign Minister Marko Djuric said on April 30 that Serbia’s foreign policy balancing between different centers of power should not be automatically interpreted as indecision, but as political maturity in the given circumstances.

“Using diplomatic balancing, we have sought to keep the position of the Republic of Serbia as favorable as possible, given the complex international circumstances,” Djuric said in an opinion piece for the latest issue of the NIN weekly. He explained the main task of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs over the past two years, since he had taken office, had been to safeguard Serbia’s strategic autonomy and its ability to make decisions in line with its interests, rather than as a reflex to external pressure or expectations.

As the most important aspects of his ministry’s work, Djuric named “protecting state interests related to Kosovo and Metohija, balancing in pursuing the strategic goal of European integration while preserving an independent foreign policy, and further developing multi-vector diplomacy.”

The Serbian foreign minister underlined that the country’s European path was one of the central pillars of its foreign policy, adding that “a very significant part of the work has been related to conducting foreign policy amid complex balancing between the process of European integration and preserving independence in foreign policy decision-making.”