Vesic: Those who advocate breaking relations with the EU advocate Serbia's ruin

Photo: Tanjug/MGSI/Predrag Mitic

Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Goran Vesic said last night that those politicians who advocate the termination of relations with the EU and the termination of European integration are also advocating the economic ruin of Serbia.

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"As a member of the government, I can tell you that the politicians who believe that we should break relations with the EU, believe that Serbia should disappear, because Serbia would really disappear if it severed its ties with the EU," Vesic told Tanjug.

He stated that a total of 9,568 companies with majority capital from the EU operate in Serbia, employing 281,841 workers, or 20.4 percent of the total registered employment in Serbia.

He added that companies, regardless of the origin of the capital, which produce and export more than 50 percent of their products to the EU market, employ 370,000 people in Serbia.

Vesic said that a total of 17,700 Serbian companies, regardless of the origin of capital, export part of their products to EU countries and that these companies employ 675,000 workers.

"If, due to difficult conditions of doing business with the EU, the number of employees in these companies would decrease by only 10 percent in the first blow, the difference in monthly inflows for the state based only on taxes and contributions would be 17 billion dinars per month. For that amount, wages can be paid to about 16,000 workers in the education sector or about 14,000 employees in the health sector," said Vesic.

He added that the trade exchange between Serbia and the EU amounts to 64 percent of Serbia's total foreign trade exchange with the world.

"Even though we are not formally a part of the EU, we are an economic part of the EU, because we rely on each other. In this sense, we are trying to synchronize laws with the EU and, of course, to achieve our most important political goal, which is to become a member of the EU," said the minister.

Vesic also said that he is trying to do as much as possible in his sector, and that includes efforts to cancel permits required of truckers with a number of EU countries.

He said that except for seven or eight countries with which Serbia has agreements to cancel permits, for most other countries Serbian truckers must obtain transit permits.

"When I was in Brussels, I asked the transport commissioner to support us and I succeeded in doing so. I sent letters to the addresses of 20 ministers of transport in Europe, in which I requested that we abolish the permit regime for Serbian road carriers. I received a positive response from Spain, we have scheduled a working group for the end of March to agree on a draft agreement, and I expect that soon our drivers will be driving in Spain without any problems," said Vesic.

He added that, for this reason, he will go to Italy at the beginning of March, where he will discuss it with Italian Minister of Transport Matteo Salvini.

(Telegraf.rs)