Kurz: Serbia should settle Kosovo issue before joining EU

BELGRADE - Austria's Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz has told the weekly NIN from Belgrade that Serbia needs to bring its relations with Kosovo completely back to normal before joining the EU, which would be confirmed with a legally binding document.

It is not in the EU's interest to accept members that have disputes with other countries, because that would introduce instability, so Serbia needs to normalise its relations with Kosovo before joining the EU, which would be confirmed by a legally binding document as well, and Brussels is prepared to help and facilitate the process, he stated.

He thinks it is also possible that Serbia will have to distance itself from Russia adopt the joint political views formulated in Brussels just before joining the EU.

Commenting on contradictory statements by EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn on whether Serbia has to impose sanctions on Russia, he said that he believed Hahn had simply wished to stress that sharing EU values and gradually falling in line with EU policies was an important part of the accession process.

The Serbian government's pro-EU direction, and especially that of Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, is very clear, Kurz underscored.

Commenting on Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj's actions after his provisional release from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, he remarked that he was not concerned about it because nationalism was an obsolete ideology in Serbia.

Photo Tanjug, D. Stankovic (archive)