First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia Ivica Dacic stated that he was shocked by the EU's decision not to open negotiating Chapters 23 and 24 with Serbia, while new chapters were opened with Turkey and Montenegro.

"Such a decision is disgraceful, incomprehensible and humiliating for Serbia, it is the result of the political intention to either halt or slow Serbia's European path. The decision reflects an overt political pressure on Serbia to abandon its clear-cut policy of safeguarding its own state interests.

Serbia has fulfilled everything required of it in the process of negotiations with the EU, Serbia holds the key to regional stability and invests considerable efforts in reforms, which will result in the creation of a modern European country. Therefore, the EU should stop giving tragicomic explanations to the effect that Croatia and the UK were blocking us. No, we are barred by the EU, for I will not be persuaded that the whole EU exercises less influence than Croatia. Besides, if Croatia, a country that committed a genocide against the Serbs in the Ustasha-run fascist Independent State of Croatia, where one can still hear the fascist greeting reverberating, and also a country which expelled more than 200 000 Serbs in Operation Storm, thus engaging itself in ethnic cleansing, will be the one to impose the benchmarks for the EU accession, it rightly begs the question of whether we are headed in the right direction.

Serbia deems the decision made by the EU unacceptable, and I am going to suggest to Prime Minister Vucic to hold emergency consultations on further actions to be taken on foreign policy, ahead of the Paris Summit, to take place on 4 July."