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Djelic holds lecture on Serbia's European integration in Berlin

Berlin, 25 October 2007

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic held a lecture on Serbia's integration into the European Union and presented the results Serbia achieved yesterday evening in Berlin. He also sought support and understanding for the difficulties Serbia faces.

Bozidar Djelic

Author: Tanjug

At this lecture organised by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung foundation, Djelic said that in past years Serbia significantly increased its GDP and levels of production and investment, and reduced inflation to a minimum.

He said that it is necessary to initial and sign the Stabilisation and Association Agreement as soon as possible because that would be the first concrete step towards EU integration which would show Serbian citizens that the European perspective is realistic.

The Serbian Deputy Prime Minister also said that the issue of cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague is very complicated and difficult and reiterated that Serbia is doing everything in its power to locate, arrest and hand over the war crimes suspects.

Speaking about Kosovo negotiations, he said that they became real negotiations only under the auspices of the mediating troika, while before that they only consisted of a one-sided presentation of the proposal in the form "take it or leave it".

He said that Serbia will never recognise Kosovo's independence, or accept that the province has its own army and place in the United Nations.

Djelic said after the meeting with Parliamentary State Secretary at the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development Karin Kortmann, that the German government decided that Serbia should use the €17 million, which it owes to Germany, for projects in the field of sustainable development and ecology.

The Serbian Deputy Prime Minister said that the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development has been the largest individual donor to Serbia in the past seven years through non-repayable assistance and non-commercial loans, and that so far Serbia received €450 million from this ministry.