Vucic with Sakellaropoulou: Serbia and Greece committed to the UN Charter and respect for territorial integrity

The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, said today that he and the President of Greece, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, had confirmed mutual respect for the UN Charter and the territorial integrity of the two countries.

Vucic said at the joint press conference that the Greek president had clearly and unequivocally expressed her support and respect for Serbia's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

"Serbia and Greece have confirmed their commitment and support for the principles of the UN Charter, the UN Resolution, each other's territorial integrity, and just as Greece supports the integrity of Serbia, Serbia also supports the integrity of the Hellenic Republic on land, sea, islands, and air. I am grateful to the president for the clear and unequivocal support," Vucic said.

According to him, it is important for Serbia to respect international law, and he added that he had informed the president that it was extremely important to find a compromise solution with Pristina.

"We have to preserve stability and peace in the region because it is of vital interest. It is in line with that to continue and speed up our European path, and I thanked the president and the Greek delegation for the support they are giving to Serbia," Vucic said.

Regarding Serbia's European path, the president says that he believes that this year Serbia can achieve somewhat more significant progress and adds that the European path is also important because of investments and the further progress of the economy.

The president says that last year, Serbia and Greece exchanged goods in the amount of 788.5 million euros and that this year it is expected to be 1 billion.

As he says, Serbia and Greece have more than traditional friendly, sisterly relations.

"Our peoples understand each other very well, and the politicians are there to follow what the peoples feel and to put it into practice," the President of Serbia said and added that cooperation in all spheres was important and that next year Serbia and Greece would celebrate 145 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations.

In that sense, he said that he had talked with the president of Greece about showing the treasury of the Serbian largest holy place located on the territory of Greece - the Hilandar Monastery in Belgrade and Athens.

Vucic also stated they had discussed two more important things - the infrastructural connection between Serbia and Greece.

"I informed the president about the railways in Serbia. The corridor Budapest - Belgrade - Skopje - Thessaloniki - Piraeus - Athens is important for us. Apart from connectivity, it is also important because of cargo traffic, and access to goods that are cheaper by sea, he said, adding that another topic was energy connectivity," Vucic said.

Serbia is on the European path

Serbia is on the European path and wants to become a full member of the EU, but we are aware that it does not depend only on us, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said, adding that it depends on what is formally expected from Serbia, which is related to the dialogue with Pristina.

Answering a journalist's question at a joint press conference with the Greek president, Vucic said that for the path to the EU, Serbia needed to do a lot more in the field of reforms.

"However, it also depends on the political situation and relations in the EU, different blocs, interests, I'm not going to say that there was fatigue, and don't forget that Serbia was accused of disrupting relations in the region on Putin's order and everything turned out to be a lie, and no one apologized to the Serbs. But that also spoke of the mood towards accepting new members," Vucic said.

When it comes to the Western Balkans and when we talk about economies, as Vucic says, we always talk about Serbia for 50 percent or more.

"Serbia will continue to contribute with a serious approach to regional issues, as well as to European and world issues. We are here, we will implement what we said we would implement, we did not play games, the word Serbia means much more and is much more important than someone else's signature," the President of Serbia said.

He points out that Serbia's goal is to accelerate its European path and strengthen the economy.