Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Frans Timmermans conferred with Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivan Mrkic in Belgrade, where they talked about the common European future, stressing that there were no open issues between the two countries.

"I acquainted Minister Timmermans with Serbian plans for negotiations with the European Union, and with the course of our dialogue with Pristina. The Netherlands supports Serbian policy line and positively views the moves of the current Government. We spent the least time discussing the bilateral relations that are taking an upturn", Mrkic said.

He assessed that even though there were no open issues between the Netherlands and Serbia, there was a lot of scope for improvement in the domain of economic cooperation, which Timmermans confirmed promising that he would encourage Dutch investments, particularly in the field of agriculture.

"I firmly believe in the European future for Serbia and in the process of negotiations which are about to start, and which will be ended with Serbian membership of the EU. This will be beneficial both to Serbia and to Europe. It is my pleasure that we can discuss our common European future", Timmermans pointed out.

Timmermans said that he was pleased with what the Serbian Government had done during the past year, stressing that the Netherlands strongly supported these efforts.

Timmermans also expressed slight disappointment with the results in the area of economic cooperation, because according to him, the Dutch investors were not as active as in the countries of the region.

When it comes to negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina, the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs underscored that there was a possibility for the two parties to leave the past behind and cooperate as partners in the united Europe, for which they had strong support from the Netherlands.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivan Mrkic

Minister Mrkic meets Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Frans Timmermans