From our point of view, we deserved a positive assessment in any sense and that the European Council would decide to name the date for the opening of negotiations with Serbia on its full membership of the European Union, said Serbian Foreign Minister Ivan Mrkic in an interview for the Portuguese new agency "Lusa" during his recent visit to Lisbon.

Responding to a question about Serbia's assessments regarding the opening of EU entry negotiations in the light of Germany still being opposed to, and linking it with full implementation of the agreement on the normalization of relations with Kosovo, which was signed in Brussels in April, Mrkic admitted that it was true there was some opposition in Germany over the setting of a date for these negotiations.

However, we are hoping that this opinion will not prevail because numerous decision makers in Germany are aware of the efforts that the Serbian Government has made, and they are now fully supportive.

Referring to the relations between Portugal and Serbia, he said that their bilateral relations had been excellent in every respect. The only difference was over the issue of the recognition of Kosovo, a southern Serbian province. Nevertheless, even this difference was not an obstacle to the strengthening of our relations and friendship. There is deep understanding, cooperation and an ever stronger interaction between us, because we know that our future is together within the European Union.

Commenting on Croatia's entry into the European Union, he said that we were very happy that Croatia would become an EU member. This fact was encouraging to Serbia as it would enable the taking of even bigger steps towards that end.

Asked to confirm that Serbia was no longer in recession in view of an industrial output growth of 5.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2013, according to official figures, Minister Mrkic replied that industrial output and exports had increased and that measures had been taken to cut the budget deficit, in the hope that we would end this year with a growth rate, more or less, of 2 per cent.

Minister Mrkic expressed Serbia's regret at the current economic crisis in southern European countries, including those in the Eurozone (Portugal, Spain, Greece, Italy...).

Serbia was sad that these countries were experiencing such problems and going through a period of challenges. We were clearly not in a position to administer a cure for their ills, but more generally, the way out of the problem would be to strike a balance between two things, austerity measures and reduction in spending. We did not support measures that could be compared, putting it simply, with success of a "medical" treatment and fatal outcome for the patient, said Mrkic.