"Serbia will meet conditions for EU accession"

"Serbia will meet conditions for EU accession"

BELGRADE -- Serbia will meet all the conditions for EU accession, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić stated on Thursday in the talks with Swiss President Didier Burkhalter.

Burkhalter is also his country's foreign minister and chairman of the OSCE.

”We consider it exceptionally important for the country to be regulated in a way that is envisaged by the European legislature,” Nikolić said.

The Serbian president said that Belgrade has won support everywhere for the talks with Priština, and expressed the expectation that the country will obtain full EU membership in much easier way than many people expected.

”Serbia is committed to cooperation in the region. Problems do arise sporadically but they can cause no harm to the important ties between countries,” the Serbian president said.

Burkhalter noted that regional cooperation and reconciliation in the region are very important.

He said that he has come to bring the message that the cooperation between the two countries is a genuine treasure, especially in the course of the previous two years, and added that security needs to be improved and reforms have to go on. After the progress Serbia has made in all segments, more investments will certainly arrive from Switzerland, he said.

Nikolić said that it will be a great honour for Serbia to hold the OSCE chair in 2015. “We are currently following your moves because we share the same goals,” Nikolić told Burkhalter whose country chairs OSCE this year.

The biggest challenge the new Serbian government will have to tackle is embodied in the ways to avoid pension cuts, Nikolić said.

Reflecting on the...