Vucevic: Impression is that Serbia was the more constructive partner in Ohrid

BRUSSELS - Serbian Defence Minister Milos Vucevic said on Tuesday the impression in Brussels was that Serbia had been the more constructive partner in the most recent round of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue in Ohrid, North Macedonia.

"I can say that there are positive views after the Ohrid discussions and that Serbia's position is slightly better," Vucevic said after attending the EU's Schuman Security and Defence Forum.

He said the impression after his discussions in Brussels was that Serbia "was the more constructive partner in Ohrid."

"Nothing is over or signed, but we are heading towards normalisation of Serbian-Albanian relations," Vucevic said.

Vucevic met with the head of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs David McAllister, the defence ministers of Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro and EU Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi.

Vucevic said the forum had focused on the Ukraine war and further EU and NATO support to Ukraine, as well as "on everything that could pose a danger to the EU."

"Surviving all this is crucial for us. In a war between big powers, it is small countries that suffer the most often, which we have experienced multiple times in history. Of course, our situation is a bit more complicated, in view of Kosovo-Metohija."

He noted that Serbia was an EU membership candidate that was a military neutral country and had the Kosovo-Metohija problem.

Pointing to double standards in the narrative on Ukraine, Vucevic said Serbia had no problem whatsoever with the insistence on the inviolability of Ukraine's borders and sovereignty.

"On the other hand, the same position is not acknowledged to us," he noted.

Asked by a reporter to comment on an exhibition about Croatia's WWII-era Roman Catholic cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, organised by a Croatian MEP in the European Parliament, Vucevic responded:

"To all of us as a country and a people, it is very frustrating. At the heart of Europe, in a place where there is talk about democracy and the fight for freedom and equality, you have an exhibition dedicated to a vicar in the Independent State of Croatia, a war criminal... We heard various opinions, including that you cannot stop an MEP from organising an exhibition, or that it is being held in a small space. That is not pleasant, and I think it is a slap in the face of entire Europe."

He said the exhibition was about someone who had been "the spiritual leader of a genocidal and Nazi state such as the Independent State of Croatia."

"That is not good for Europe either, and if Europe accepts such content, then I am concerned about Europe, too," Vucevic noted.