Belgrade, 28 October 2022 (MIA) — Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Friday the construction works near Nishka Banja on the gas pipeline between Serbia and Bulgaria. During the press conference that followed, the EC President invited Serbia to join the EU in the procurement of gas and announced an immediate budget support of 165 million euros in grants to help Serbian households and businesses cope with the high energy prices, MIA’s Belgrade correspondent reports. Von der Leyen, speaking about the Serbia – Bulgaria gas interconnector, said the EU was very much looking forward to having this project completed in one year. “We need to diversify our gas supplies. We see that dependency that is too much focused on Russian gas is not good. We have felt it bitterly during the last months. So the diversification away to reliable suppliers is paramount for us,” the EC President said. Von der Leyen also said the Western Balkans and the EU were already together in an Energy Union. “By that I mean that, whatever the European Union does, the Western Balkans are included because we are so much interconnected that, in our Energy Union, whatever the one or the other does has an influence on us. If something happens in the European Union, it has an influence in the Western Balkans. If here something, for example an improvement with the gas interconnector, happens, it has a positive influence for the whole European Union because we are in an Energy Union,” she pointed out. “And we have been working very hard during the last months in this Energy Union to master the energy crisis,” von der Leyen continued, recalling that Russia had cut 100 billion cubic meters of gas and the EU was able to compensate. “Now, we invite everyone, and Serbia too, to join us in our EU joint procurement of gas because we want to use our market power as the Energy Union to achieve better results on the global market,” the EC President said. She also said Serbia was as affected as the rest of the European Union by the difficulties in the energy market overall, so the EU was taking steps to help. “We have decided that we want to take two steps: One is a short-term support, not only for the Member States, but also for the Western Balkans. And here, I am happy to announce that EUR 165 million in grants for immediate budget support are available for Serbia,” she said. “I think this is absolutely necessary so that Serbia, like other countries, is able to support vulnerable families, vulnerable households and vulnerable businesses, small and medium enterprises, so that they can cope with the high energy prices.” However, von der Leyen said, this was not a long-term, sustainable solution. “What we need is investment,” she pointed out. This is why, she added, the EU was providing EUR 500 million in grants in investment in infrastructure for projects such as the Trans-Balkan Electricity Corridor, connecting Italy to Bulgaria via Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina; a modern and more energy-efficient University Children's Hospital in Belgrade; and a gas interconnector between Serbia and North Macedonia. Asked about Serbia’s not imposing sanctions on Russia, von der Leyen said the EU enlargement process was based on merit, which was up to the candidate country to achieve. She highlighted the importance of aligning with the common foreign and security policy “because membership in the EU means sharing the same values,” she said. She added that the bloc counted on Serbia as a reliable partner. She also said there would be more intense dialogue to find a solution for the Kosovo license plates, noting that "what we need is constructiveness and flexibility from both sides." On relations with Prishtina, Vucic said Serbia would do everything it could to preserve peace and stability, but also that "all unilateral moves had been made by Prishtina, not Belgrade." Speaking about the EC report, Vucic said it was realistic and mostly accurate. “Is Serbia a country that has not imposed sanctions on Russia? This is true. I have nothing to complain about or say that anything [in the report] was unfair to our country. All that was written is true, because I think there are problems in the dialogue, which I don't think Serbia is even zero percent responsible for,” Vucic said. He reiterated that Serbia respects Ukraine’s territorial integrity. “Only, we wonder sometimes why Serbia’s integrity is not always respected, but opinions about this are different today. We understood the message of the EC President. We are aligning with the EU's visa policy. We will also try to make progress toward the EU in all other areas as fast as possible,” Vucic said. mr/