Brnabic: Membership in European Union is Serbia's foreign policy priority

Photo: Tanjug/Vladimir Sporcic

President of the National Assembly of Serbia Ana Brnabic said on Monday that the strategic goal of Serbia and its most important foreign policy priority is membership in the European Union and that this, overall, guides Serbia's foreign policy.

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"I think that Serbia is a country that belongs in the EU in every sense, both geographically and in terms of history and tradition and economically. So it seems to me that it would be good for the security policy of the EU to accept the entire region of the Western Balkans as soon as possible," Brnabic said during a meeting with a delegation of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

Brnabic stressed that she understands that Serbia must do its part, but that her criticism is that the conditions for EU membership and what must be done are constantly changing.

"The most important thing for our European policy and for our country is respecting international law and the UN Charter, and that this cannot depend on the situation and (change) from one country to another, but be absolutely inviolable. It cannot be that what can be violated in the case of one country is absolutely inviolable when it comes to another, because in that case, it's about double standards and a rather schizophrenic foreign policy," Brnabic stressed.

She added that Serbia respects international law and that, when the Russian Federation began its aggression against Ukraine, Serbia defined it as such and clearly voted, along with its partners from the EU, in the United Nations General Assembly to condemn that, and clearly emphasized that it was an example of a violation of international law.

"We made it clear to everyone that any violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine is completely unacceptable to us. In this sense, we owe Ukraine a lot, because it also fully respects the territorial integrity of Serbia and has never recognized, nor had the intention of recognizing the so-called Republic of Kosovo. In the same way, we respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine," said Brnabic.

She added that it remains unclear how someone who violated the territorial integrity of Serbia in 2008 is now fighting so fiercely against any change of internationally recognized borders.

"We think that one of the basic rules of international law is respect for internationally recognized borders of UN member states, that it is one of the basic principles that must not be violated in any case. It is also written in the UN Charter. However, that principle was violated by some (countries) in the case of Serbia," said the president of the Serbian Assembly.

Brnabic stressed that Serbia was one of the first countries to say that it would not recognize the results of referendums in the four occupied Ukrainian regions, while many from the NATO Parliamentary Assembly could not wait to recognize so-called Kosovo as independent, when Pristina in 2008 unilaterally declared independence, without a referendum.

She added that the only thing Serbia did not do was impose sanctions against the Russian Federation and explained that there was a clear reason for that.

"During the 1990s, our country was subject to international sanctions. We do not think that such sanctions are a way to dissuade someone from waging war or to reduce someone's ability to wage war. Sanctions in fact affect the most vulnerable strata of the population. The majority of our people, our citizens are absolutely against imposing sanctions, but in terms of values, we condemned the aggression and voted like our partners from the EU in the UN General Assembly," Brnabic said.

Asked about public opinion polls "about Serbia in NATO," Brnabic said that she had not seen them, but that she thought that, after the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), people would continue to value our military neutrality.

"But at the same time, I think it is useful for Serbia to have the highest possible level of cooperation with NATO, and I am personally extremely grateful for that cooperation at a time of innovation in the field of science and technology. It is extremely important for Serbia and I have always been very satisfied, positive and surprised, and glad to see that we are one of the leaders in that cooperation," Brnabic said.

She pointed out that this is especially true considering the situation in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.

"I must say that the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija today see KFOR as one of their greatest allies, closest friends in preserving peace and stability. I am eternally grateful to you for that. I don't think that will change in the near future. I think that Serbia will preserve its military neutrality with the highest possible degree of cooperation with NATO as a non-member," concluded Brnabic.

She pointed out that the situation of Serbia is particularly complex and that it is specific considering that many have violated international law in two brutal ways in the case of Serbia.

"The first time in 1999, when NATO attacked us, without a UN Security Council decision, which was the first clear, obvious act of aggression after the Second World War, in the territory of Europe, and which others could later use to carry out aggression against someone else, under similar or different pretexts, but a violation of international law is a violation of international law," Brnabic said.

She noted that Yugoslavia did not lay a finger on someone else's territory, that it did not in any way harm or pose a security threat to any NATO member state to justify such an aggression by the alliance against us.

"The second time international law was brutally violated and trampled in our case was in 2008, when Pristina declared its independence," said Brnabic and reminded that the Serbs in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija also survived a pogrom in (March) 2004.

She said that the ethnic cleansing of the Serb population in the province lasted for four days in that instance, including the burning of churches and monasteries which are part of the world cultural heritage under UNESCO's protection.

"4,000 people were expelled from south of the Ibar. Some towns and villages in Kosovo and Metohija were ethnically cleansed. Serbs never returned to those towns and villages. Monasteries and churches from the 11th, 12th, 13th centuries were burned down. The whole world could clearly see what the intentions of the Albanian authorities in Kosovo and Metohija were, and they were rewarded, just four years later, with so-called independence without any referendum, and many (countries) rushed to recognize such independence," concluded Brnabic.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)