Brnabic: Pristina must start establishing Community of Serb Municipalities

PARIS - Serbia has France's full support in that agreements signed by Belgrade and Pristina must be implemented, Serbian PM Ana Brnabic said in Paris on Tuesday evening after a meeting with French PM Elisabeth Borne.

Speaking to reporters, Brnabic said Pristina must implement the Brussels Agreement and start establishing a Community of Serb Municipalities. When asked if the meeting had addressed a French-German proposal for normalising the Belgrade-Pristina relations, Brnabic said discussions about new proposals made no sense because Pristina was violating existing agreements on normalisation and refusing to implement them.

"We did not discuss that proposal because, before any new proposals and any discussions about new agreements, full implementation of existing agreements is the necessary, completely natural and logical thing," Brnabic said.

She said the meeting with Borne had mostly dealt with advancement of Serbia-France economic ties and that the level of bilateral cooperation to date was extremely high.

"I am glad that, in the government's new term, I will be working together with PM Borne on further strengthening political and economic relations between the two countries," she said. She noted that many French companies, including Vinci Airports - the operator of Belgrade's Nikola Tesla Airport, SUEZ - which operates the Vinca landfill and plans to use waste as fuel - and Michelin - Serbia's fifth-largest exporter - had come to Serbia to invest in the country.

Brnabic said she and Borne had also discussed Serbia's EU integration, and noted that France was providing continued support to Serbia on the EU path. She said they had also talked about constitutional amendments related to the judiciary, legislation that needed to be amended, media freedoms and the fight against organised crime and corruption.