Ministers Dacic and Czaputowicz on bilateral relations, economic cooperation and Serbia’s EU integration

Ivica DacicFirst Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia Ivica Dacic had a meeting today with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, Jacek Czaputowicz, who is on an official visit to the Republic of Serbia.

Ministers Dacic and Czaputowicz discussed the bilateral relations and economic cooperation between their countries, and Serbia’s EU integration.

At the joint press conference, the two Ministers highlighted that, in the coming year, Serbia and Poland will be marking the 100th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between them, and that – given such good historical relations, the two countries would develop an even better mutual relationship, in the period ahead.

“We are friendly countries and friendly peoples. Perhaps we have not made a sufficient amount of effort to operationalize and develop our friendly relations, primarily in view of all the problems that we have faced together over the past decades, but we are nevertheless very pleased to note today that Poland is an EU Member State which is one of the main advocates of the EU enlargement thesis”, stated Serbia’s Foreign Minister.

Foreign Minister Dacic underlined that Serbia was satisfied with the level of economic exchange between the two countries, which has reached almost a billion and 200 million euro last year, while totalling some 380 million euro in the first four months of this year.

“Given the recorded growth of commodity exchange, we hope to see the exchange surge, year after year,” said Minister Dacic, adding that Poland is Serbia’s eighth largest trading partner, and fifth largest among EU Member States.

Minister Czaputowicz stated that today’s visit was a confirmation of good relations existing between the two countries, that Poland wishes to strengthen these relations, as much as it would like to reinforce economic and cultural cooperation, as well as cooperation within the framework of international organizations. The Polish Foreign Minister emphasized his country’s support to Serbia’s aspirations to join the European Union, indicating it as one of the goals of the foreign policy of Poland.