First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia Ivica Dacic attended today, as the keynote speaker, a lunch with the Ambassadors of EU Member States, hosted by the Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia, Sem Fabrizi.

On this occasion, Minister Dacic pointed to the tragic event which marked the previous week. The Minister stressed that the assassination of Oliver Ivanovic threatened the stability in the region and the continuation of the dialogue on the normalization of Belgrade-Pristina relations, emphasizing Serbia's expectation that the Pristina authorities and the international institutions with a presence in Kosovo and Metohija will seek out and prosecute those responsible as soon as possible. He reiterated that the Serbian side was committed to the dialogue, but that the talks would, however, continue when it is provided with concrete information about the crime which happened.

Minister Dacic underscored that full membership of the EU remained Serbia's absolute foreign policy priority. In this context, the announced EU Enlargement Strategy should present in a concrete form the positive and encouraging messages conveyed by the President of the European Commission, Mr. Juncker. The Minister expressed his belief that 2025 having been announced as the year of potential next enlargement would have a highly positive impact on the citizens' support to European integration, at the same time demonstrating that European countries considered Serbia their future equal partner within the Union.

He welcomed in particular the decision by the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU to host an EU-Western Balkans Summit in May 2018, which clearly indicated that the focus was on the Balkans again. Furthermore, he expressed his hope that the European Commission's next Progress Report on enlargement would acknowledge the progress achieved so far and recognize the efforts made and work done by Serbia towards comprehensive reforms.