Vucic: Those who have lithium become regional or global powers

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Monday evening countries that had lithium became regional or global powers.

Asked by Pink TV about lithium-related projects launched by several Western European countries including Germany and France, Vucic said all those countries - including Portugal, Germany, Czechia and France - would be "ready before Serbia."

"That is why they needed to stop us two and three years ago, because we would have been the first at that time, and everything would have depended on us. Foreign agencies, Western ones, stopped us from achieving that at that time. We were naive enough - I will not say stupid - maybe I was stupid enough not to understand that right away, what was going on behind everything. All other people were naive and believed they protected Serbia or whatever - on the contrary, we did a huge disservice to ourselves and many bad things to our country," Vucic said.