Despite the many problems plaguing the European Union (EU), Serbia is seeking Nigeria’s support to become a full member of the organisation
This indication was given by the Serbian Ambassador to Nigeria, Rifat Rondic, when he visited LEADERSHIP corporate office in Abuja, yesterday.
He said that Serbia recognised the enormous benefits it stood to gain from EU membership hence its determination to progress in discussions with the EU and use Nigeria’s growing global influence to achieve that.
Rondic said, “European Union is the most integrated part of the world in all aspects. Of the former Yugoslavia countries, only Croatia and Slovenia are members of the EU and it is our foreign policy priority to gain full membership of the EU in the next five or six years.”
Serbia is the remaining core part of the defunct Yugoslavia and has had a decade of tumultuous relationship with the rest of Europe. Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia are the other five parts of the disintegrated Yugoslavia.
European Union leaders expectedly granted Serbia the status of a candidate for membership in the 27-member bloc during their summit yesterday in recognition of its government's efforts to round up war crimes’ suspects and normalise relations with Kosovo, its former province.
The Serbian envoy said that Nigeria has a good relationship with Serbia starting from the 1960s and 1970s during the non aligned movement to which both nations were active members. He promised to deepen the bilateral relations by encouraging more economic and cultural exchanges between the two nations.