Belgrade, 13 June 2022 (MIA) – Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic held talks Monday in Belgrade with Austrian Minister of European and International Affairs, Alexander Schallenberg to discuss bilateral and economic cooperation, Serbia’s EU integration process, geopolitical issues and peace and stability in the Western Balkans, MIA’s Belgrade correspondent reports. President Vucic’s office in a press release said that Schallenberg during the meeting presented the non-paper forwarded by Austria recently to the EU member states in an attempt to make the EU enlargement process more tangible and to create an opportunity where candidate countries will gradually integrate into European Union policies, which will be beneficial for all. Speaking at a news conference earlier alongside Serbian Foreign Minister Nikola Selakovic, Schallenberg said that Austria proposes that the countries in the region step by step should be treated as full-fledged members from one area to another, be it energy, transport, etc. The security system in Europe, he noted, is witnessing a radical blow and no one should hope they will be only observers from the sidelines. Austria’s proposal in the non-paper, according to him, has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine. It involves Austria’s well-known position that the European perspective of the candidate countries should be more concrete, the top diplomat said. Austria, Schallenberg stated, is so closely connected with the region that it is our vital, personal and geostrategic interest for the region to prosper, which is only possible as part of the EU.