Tadic: Serbia can obtain EU candidate status in 2009

14/09/2008

BELGRADE, Serbia -- Serbia can become an EU candidate by mid 2009, President Boris Tadic said on Saturday (September 13th). While achieving that status in the first half of the year would be difficult, mid-2009 was more realistic, he said in an interview with the daily Blic

"For us, it is vital to minimise time frames. If we can begin membership talks as a candidate sooner, we can shorten our path to the EU. The aim is to make up for all the missed opportunities of the past eight years as quickly as possible," the president said. "We need to invest great efforts to make the same train as Croatia when it comes to EU integration."

In other news, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic met with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday (September 12th) to discuss his country' initiative to seek the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) opinion on Kosovo's declaration of independence. Jeremic said during the meeting that he asked the United States not to oppose Serbia's move. In response, Rice said Washington would take Serbia's arguments into consideration before making a final decision."(Blic, Tanjug, RTS, B92, Beta, - 13/09/08)