The VICE PRESIDENT of the Government of the RS, Aleksandar Vulin, gave an interview to “Berliner Zeitung” ahead of the summit that will be held on the tenth anniversary of the first Western Balkan conference in Berlin.
– Serbia has taken the European path. That is the majority opinion of Serbian politics. However, even in Germany, the majority opinion of politicians often differs from the opinion of citizens. Personally, I am a Eurosceptic, just like at least 30 percent of Germans, as well as several million EU citizens who believe that the European Union should not be a collection of territories, but a community of free nations – said Vulin.
He pointed out that the EU has a problem with its own credibility and that he was not as Eurosceptic as he is today.
– When I started conducting technical negotiations with the EU and when I got to know the EU from the inside, I became a Eurosceptic. The leading figures there are not sincere. They do not have an honest attitude when it comes to accession. We have been waiting eleven years for the EU to fulfill its promise, implement the Brussels Agreement and form the Union of Serbian Municipalities. Years ago, I negotiated with EU representatives about Chapter 35. At first, they said that it only contained a list of previously assumed obligations. And then that chapter gets a kind of life of its own and each of the EU member states can add their own terms to it.
Tell us simply: We don’t want you. Why do you keep setting us conditions that we cannot fulfill. We consider the EU as our partner, but we are not entirely sure that the EU also considers us as its partner. President Putin never told us that Russia would cut off relations with Serbia if we joined the EU or if we were to hold accession negotiations. EU negotiators are telling us: If you don’t cut off relations with Russia, you won’t enter the EU. So are we partners or not? Don’t we also have the right to our own interests? – said Vulin.
When asked if he could imagine joining the EU under the condition that Serbia recognizes Kosovo, and the EU, by all accounts, will never give up Kosovo’s independence, Vice President Vulin emphasized that the recognition of Kosovo is completely unacceptable for Serbia.
– It is Serbian territory that was stolen from us. It cannot be said now: The most important thing is that the Serbs who live there are pacified and that they are given some rights. Europe spares neither money nor other means to re-establish Ukraine’s borders. Why is that not valid when it comes to Serbia? Do I need to remind you that Europe and NATO once guaranteed the survival of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia? And then suddenly the union of Serbia and Montenegro was formed. And then that alliance also ceased to exist. Why is everything always done to the detriment of Serbia? – pointed out Vulin.
He reminded that five EU member states did not recognize Kosovo.
– So, who sets the conditions? The largest EU countries? Brussels administration? The EU and Brussels act as if Kosovo is an independent state. And yet no one unequivocally stated: You must recognize Kosovo. Then they should be so honest as to formulate it explicitly. After that we will see what we have to do next.
Our president Aleksandar Vučić advocates an independent Serbian foreign policy. It is our decision to be militarily neutral and to make our own decisions about who our friends are. This includes all those who have no military pretensions towards Serbia and who at least try to respect Serbian interests. We lead a realistic policy. Also, we do not believe that Germany or the USA will ever admit the mistake they committed when they bombed Serbia in 1999. However, we will not pretend that it did not happen – said Vice President Vulin.
Asked whether joining BRICS could be an option for Serbia, Vice President Vulin said that Serbia will be present in Kazan and that it would be irresponsible if we did not examine all possibilities, including membership in BRICS:
– If BRICS is also attractive for other countries, for example for the Emirates or for Saudi Arabia or for Turkey, why should it be different in the case of Serbia? There is no doubt that BRICS has become a realistic alternative to the European Union.
Regarding whether the future belongs to the West or the non-West, the vice president of the Serbian government points out that the future belongs to the values of all humanity, regardless of whether they are in the geographical East or the geographical West.
– We Serbs believe in traditional values: God, nation, family. People all over the world believe in them. However, we have the feeling that in many countries there is a prevailing politics according to which God does not exist, which considers the nation a relic of the past, and the family is unnecessary. I am a politician of the left and I believe in social justice. How can there be social justice on a globalized planet dominated by multinational companies? Where the left no longer deals with the question of how to achieve more social justice, but with whether there are more or less LGBT rights somewhere. For me, the future lies in traditional values - said Vulin.
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Source: www.novosti.rs
