Eurasia Press & News
French President Emmanuel Macron said tonight that the future of Serbia is “within the European Union (EU) and “nowhere else” and called on Kosovo and Belgrade to “go further” on the road to normalization.
“Serbia must not doubt, regardless of the early recent past, that its future is in the EU and nowhere else,” Macron said in a joint statement with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, whom he received at the Elysee Palace.
Nothing should “lead us to doubt that path,” Macron insisted.
France Press recalls that Serbia, which is negotiating EU accession, condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but refuses to join the sanctions imposed by the West on Moscow and maintains privileged relations with that country.
“It is important that Serbia continues to realize its choice (toward the EU), especially through greater alignment with our foreign policy decisions,” Macron said.
“That choice must also be strengthened by continuing and accelerating reforms related to strengthening the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and media pluralism,” added the French president.
After a bloody war with 13,000 dead, followed by the declaration of Kosovo’s independence, in 2011, Pristina and Belgrade joined a dialogue under the auspices of the EU, which aims to normalize their relations.
However, tensions are still high between the two sides. In September 2023, “heavily armed members of the Serbian paramilitary commandos killed a Kosovo policeman and then retreated to a monastery in the village of Banjska in the north of Kosovo.”
Macron called for “those responsible for the attack on Banjska to be brought to justice and held accountable” and that “everything should be done to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.”
The French president promised that he would “monitor how the obligations undertaken by the authorities in Pristina are respected” in terms of “quick organization of elections in the north of Kosovo for new mayors with true democratic legitimacy.”
“We need to overcome the tensions created by the decisions Kosovo made recently on financial transfers,” he added, referring to the ban on commercial transactions in Serbian dinars, which has been tolerated in predominantly Serb areas of Kosovo.
The French agency added that the President of Serbia disputed part of Macron’s statement that both sides (Belgrade and Pristina) had done something as part of the dialogue.
Vučić assessed the opposite, that “one of the two camps did nothing”, alluding to Kosovo.
