President Vucic speaks in Paris: Incoming news is unfavorable for everyone, especially for Serbia

Photo: TanjugLive/Printscreen

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was on Tuesday in Paris, where he attended a military parade on the occasion of the French national holiday.

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The president afterwards addressed the citizens at home.

"We are not part of the European Union or NATO, and that is why I am particularly grateful to the president of France for the exceptional support and respect he showed to Serbia, because we are not even part of the 'Coalition of the Willing' that was formed in February 2023. These are the countries that stand for robust support for Ukraine and that created that alliance to provide enormous help to that country," he said.

It was good to be a citizen of Serbia today, he added, especially to represent Serbia on Champs-Elysees and Place de la Concorde.

"I hope we will have the opportunity to repay our French friends for that, sometime in the future. I also took the opportunity to speak with Antonio Costa, the president of the European Council, with Kier Starmer, the British prime minister, with Nikos Christodoulides, the president of Cyprus, and Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland. Additionally, I spoke with, I would say, some other very important people, once again with Mark Rutte, and yes, I briefly exchanged opinions," the president said today.

He pointed out that, unfortunately, some other things that come as news are not particularly favorable for anyone in the world, especially not for our country.

"I'm especially referring to the newly announced tariffs for those countries that import Russian gas and oil; we don't import Russian oil, but we do import Russian gas."

"So I hope that the beginning of the strategic dialogue with the United States will give us, that is, on Friday, the opportunity to discuss all these things and to try to solve these issues in a slightly different way, and to ask for some kind of understanding from the American side for Serbia. The continuation of the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz, as well as the intensification of the conflict in Ukraine, is very bad news, because it leads to, speaking of very practical things, to a tremendous increase in oil prices."

"So, yesterday the price was 78.3 dollars per barrel, today this morning it was already 85.4, and if the conflicts continue, it will be at 90, and that will take us back again. Today, the price of diesel would be 247 dinars (per liter), so just to keep that in mind, we are losing huge money as a state due to the reduction of excise taxes."

"I know that people are not very interested in that, but they should know that it's very difficult, very difficult to withstand, to lose 27 dinars on every liter, and then it becomes clear how much the state loses and how the state has to bear the burden."

"Accordingly, I will propose to the minister of finance and the Government of Serbia to lower our excise taxes again by Friday, to 20%, to reduce our revenues by 20%, i.e. from the excise tax on oil, so that we can keep a normal price, a decent price for the people, to prevent any kind of surprise concerning the spiral of inflation. These are the real problems we are facing," Vucic said today.

(Telegraf.rs)