TRIESTE – Serbia welcomes the Berlin Initiative as Belgrade believes it demonstrates that the EU is maintaining the enlargement agenda, Serbian FM Ivica Dačić said in Trieste on Wednesday, adding that consent on a single economic area in the region was a good thing but that the concept could not be accepted as a substitute for EU membership.
Dačić’s position was echoed by Albanian PM Edi Rama, who was taking part in a special broadcast from Trieste alongside Dačić, Macedonian PM Zoran Zaev and Regional Cooperation Council Secretary-General Goran Svilanović.
Serbia has completed the first process of economic reforms, which relates to austerity, and the issue of high deficit has been resolved, but an economy cannot be based on austerity, and growth is required, Dačić said, adding that there could be no growth without economic and political stability in the region.