BELGRADE, April 25 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) will remain the most reliable partner of Serbia, President of the European Council Donald Tusk said at a joint press conference with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic here.
Tusk visited Serbia as part of his tour of Balkan countries and met Vucic to discuss preparations for the EU-Western Balkans summit to be held on May 17 in the capital of Bulgaria.
"EU will remain the most reliable partner of Serbia. At the summit we will repeat our readiness to work on the European perspective of the region," he announced.
Tusk said "the whole world today knows that Moscow, Washington, Ankara or Brussels will not decide on Serbia's future" and stressed that it is up to Serbia itself to decide.
"EU is a place where nothing is imposed to others. We should look at the EU as a project with a strategic dimension. Together we can achieve everything -- highest standards of public life, security and above all, mutual respect and preservation of national identities," he said.
Tusk added the EU wishes to deepen economic ties with Serbia. "We wish to strengthen cooperation that will bring biggest benefits -- investing in roads, railways, as well as student and cultural exchange," he said.
Vucic said the meeting discussed concrete projects such as the financial agreement that was signed Wednesday between the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the flight controls of Serbia and Montenegro, worth more than 45 million euro (54.7 million U.S. dollars), intended for improvement of flight control.
Vucic and Tusk also talked about projects of regional highway interconnection, especially the future Nis-Pristina highway to be financed by the EIB, as well as the future gas interconnection between Serbia and Bulgaria, which the EU supported with a grant of around 50 million euros.
Vucic said that the issue of Serbia's south province of Kosovo and Metohija, that unilaterally declared independence without recognition of Serbia, will become the biggest obstacle on country's European path, if no adequate solution is found.
"Serbia fulfilled everything in its power in that regard, and we feel that it is important that we reach a compromise solution," said Vucic, adding that he has shown a copy of the Brussels agreement between Belgrade and Pristina signed in 2013, but still not fully implemented by Pristina authorities.
"I told Tusk that we can accept any compromise, but we cannot accept the humiliation of Serbia," he said, adding it would be best if Serbia solved the question first internally, then with Albanians, and then with the EU and the international community.
