Vice-president of Serbian Government Aleksandar Vucic said today that people in Serbia loved Germany but not as much as they loved Serbia. He said that after the meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s senior adviser Christoph Heusgen.

Vucic thinks that Serbia may be given a date for the start of EU membership talks in April. However, he underlined that difficult work would have to precede such an outcome.

“The talks in Berlin today were not easy but the German officials cannot but notice the progress that Serbia has made. There are still some things that the government has to do without violating national interests, so that it could get a date for the start of EU talks,” said Vucic.

Vucic expects that the future position of Germany about the EU membership of Serbia depends on the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. Still, Belgrade would not back down from its idea for an association of Serb communities to be formed. “That thing is not being brought into question,” Vucic explained.

He considers that a date for EU talks was “important for the citizens of Serbia for economic and political reasons”, as it would enable “imports of key machines and transfer of technologies for factories in Serbia, but also greater financial and economic assistance“.

Vucic, Deputy Prime Minister for EU Integration Suzana Grubjesic, parliamentary Committee on EU Integration President Milica Delevic and president’s advisor Marko Djuric met with MPs of the ruling Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU) coalition on Thursday morning.

Grubjesic, Delevic and Djuric also attended a conference dubbed “The Balkans and European Future- the role of Serbia“ at the Robert Bosch Foundation.

Serbian high-ranked delegation visited Germany with intention to convince German officials to support Serbia with its EU membership agenda.

Serbian media suggest that Germany is key European partner of Serbia.