Bled: Starović talks about the foreign policy priorities of Serbia

State Secretary Starović attended the panel “EU Enlargement in the Western Balkans - Old feeling of a new beginning” at the Bled Strategic Forum. In his interview to Tanjug, he said that his participation in the Bled Strategic Forum was a good opportunity to state the foreign policy priorities of Serbia, primarily in the context of European integration, which he deemed to be perhaps the main subject of this year's forum.

“There was a lot of talk about Serbia over the last two days, and finally, at the very end of the Forum, we had an opportunity to present the main directions of our foreign policy. I talked about the full EU membership as a long-term strategic commitment of Serbia. I said that we were a country in an advanced stage of the accession process, a country which had opened 22 of the 35 negotiating chapters, and the first country to fully accept the new methodology of the accession process”, stated State Secretary Starović.

Nevertheless, he added that he had also stated that, as the saying goes, “it takes two to tango”, and that, while Serbia was committed to reforms and had taken big steps forward in their implementation, first and foremost by amending its Constitution at the beginning of the year in order to ensure a higher level of judicial independence, this had proven to not be enough.

What was still needed, added State Secretary Starović, was an effort in Brussels, among EU Member States, to overcome the so-called “enlargement fatigue”, so the enlargement process could finally reach its final stage.

“Another side of the story about the enlargement fatigue is an accession fatigue among citizens both of Serbia and all the countries of the Western Balkans. We should be honest and acknowledge the challenges ahead, in order to be able to search for the solutions together”, stressed State Secretary Starović.

As regards the European integration of Serbia, there was a lot of discussion on the forum about whether it was necessary to normalise relations between Belgrade and Pristina. State Secretary Starović states that the most important fact is that Serbia is committed to the negotiation process which is being conducted with the EU mediation, under the mandate obtained in the UN General Assembly.

“We are aware that there is really no alternative to the negotiation process, and our side is not the one who has been resorting to unilateral measures, particularly unilateral measures which lead to destabilisation and have to be violently executed. I think more or less everyone in the EU is aware of this, whether or not they are ready to say it openly and in so many words as we are doing”, stated State Secretary Starović.

He emphasised that the upcoming period would, in any case, be full of challenges relating to the situation in Kosovo and Metohija, since “the other side at the negotiating table” very frequently resorted to unilateral measures, which was something of a pattern of behaviour for Pristina in the previous year and half.

State Secretary Starović stated that the biggest challenge facing Serbia was to preserve peace and stability in the region, and at the same time protected the rights and interests of the Serbian population living in Kosovo and Metohija, while not violating Serbia’s vital interests.

As regards the fact that Serbia was discussed at the Bled Strategic Forum in the context of the war in Ukraine, State Secretary Starović expressed his pleasure that he had an opportunity to present the main directions of Belgrade’s policy with regard to that conflict.

“I used the opportunity to repeat that Serbia had, practically from the first day of the war, taken a firm and principled position based on common, universal values such as the preservation of the territorial integrity of internationally recognised states, and that we had, in line with that, condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in many international forums, but that we are also not ready to join the sanctions against the Russian Federation, for multiple reasons”, said State Secretary Starović.

In his words, some of the reasons why Serbia is not imposing sanctions against Russia are that it is, on principle, opposing the use of economic sanctions as tools in the implementation of a foreign policy, as well as because, as a country which is still not a EU Member State, it does not have the kind of political and economic stability which comes from the EU membership.

“The consequences of imposing sanctions against the Russian Federation would be disastrous to our economy, And, similarly to what we saw during the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we would be left to deal with it on our own”, concluded State Secretary Starović.

Source/Photo: Tanjug