CROATIA URGES SERBIA TO CHOOSE BETWEEN RUSSIA, EU

Mon 06 June 2022:

Serbia must choose between Russia and the European Union, according to Croatia’s prime minister on Monday.

“If Serbia has the ambition to continue its journey to the EU, one has to know where it stands. Now is not the time to sit on two chairs,” Andrej Plenkovic said in comments on the controversy over Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s cancelled trip to Belgrade.

Lavrov was forced to call off the two-day visit, which was due to start on Monday and included talks with President Aleksandar Vucic, after Montenegro, North Macedonia and Bulgaria close their airspace to his plane.

“In the current circumstances, Serbia should be very careful about who it sides with,” Plenkovic said.

He, however, acknowledged that the visit had “nothing to do with Croatia” and was a bilateral matter between Moscow and Belgrade.

Lavrov’s travel to Serbia would have been the first by a high-ranking Russian official since the start of the Ukraine conflict, and it was timed to coincide with the EU’s continued efforts to punish Moscow with sanctions and other measures.

Serbia has come under increasing criticism for its neutrality and reluctance to censure Russia, which is nearly totally reliant on Russian gas and oil.

In recent months, Vucic has walked a tightrope, expressing concern that penalizing Russia would be costly to Belgrade while simultaneously assuring the EU that “Serbia is on the European path” and that this was the country’s “only policy.”

Serbia’s 10-year gas supply contract with Russian giant Gazprom expired at the end of May, prompting Vucic to call Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 29 and announce that the two sides had reached an agreement on a new three-year contract.

During Lavrov’s visit to Belgrade, the deal was anticipated to be formally inked.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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