The Prime Minister of Serbia, Ana Brnabić, stated in an interview for the "Financial Times" that "Serbia should not be asked to choose between the West and Russia".
The newspaper states that Brnabić "insisted that Serbia's ties with Moscow are not an obstacle to its candidacy for membership in the European Union".
The FT states that "the election of reform expert Ana Brnabić in June sent a signal that Belgrade has set EU accession as the most important goal", but that "Serbia's path to the EU remains hazy due to the varied level of progress when it comes to reforms, fatigue from enlargement in European bloc and skepticism related to Belgrade's political, military and economic ties with Russia".
In the introduction to the interview, the FT also states that "European officials - who are increasingly wary of Russia's influence in the Balkans - accuse Moscow of fomenting unrest in the region and look warily at Belgrade's balancing act between East and West", as well as that "the US is also asking Belgrade to make a clear statement about the strategic direction in which it is going, so a high-ranking American diplomat warned Serbia this month that it 'cannot sit on two chairs at the same time'".
FT states that Brnabić said in the interview that "integration into the EU remains the main foreign policy goal".
"It is not fair to ask Serbia to choose and decide, and I believe that this is not necessary. We are neither pro-American nor pro-Russian, but pro-Russian oriented. Our strategic focus is on EU membership and wherever we go, whoever we talk to, we say that," said Brnabić.
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