Belgrade doesn’t plan to impose anti-Russian sanctions

By Vestnik Kavkaza

In December, after Moscow had declared it was abandoning the South Stream Project, the Foreign Minister of Serbia Ivica Dačić expressed deep disappointment about the fact. However, his Russian colleague Sergei Lavrov promised to consider Belgrade’s interests regarding diversification of routes of Russian energy-resources exports to Europe, which will guarantee the energy security of Serbia.

The South Stream Project, a gas pipeline which should have been constructed along the bottom of the Black Sea and should have passed through Bulgaria to the Balkan republics, Hungary, Austria and Italy, was abandoned due to the unconstructive position of the EU. It was decided to construct a pipeline to Turkey and establish a gas hub on the Greek border for consumers of Southern Europe.

However, Serbia’s connection to the Turkish Stream gas pipeline is only an idea; there is no clear project for the pipeline, according to Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Serbia to the Russian Federation, Dr. Slavenko Terzic. He points out that political cooperation between Belgrade and Moscow is based on a deep traditional friendship. At the same time, he thinks that Russian-Serbian economic relations could be at an even higher level. “Last year the trade turnover between the two parties was $3.4 billion. It is not enough, I think, in comparison with the trade volume with Turkey, Germany, even with Hungary. Our exports to Russia were 1.3 billion, our imports from Russia were 2.3 billion dollars. 75% of the imports from Russia were energy - gas and oil. Last year exports rose sufficiently from Serbia: vegetables, fruits, agricultural products,” Slavenko Terzic stated.

He also confirmed that Belgrade had no plans to join in with the anti-Russian sanctions, even though Brussels wanted Belgrade to build its foreign policy according to the EU position.