Brnabic: Serbia must have much better relations with Baltic states

RIGA - Serbian Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic said on Tuesday in Riga Serbia must have much better relations and communication with Baltic states as they were often denying support to Serbia on its EU path.

Brnabic said her visit to Latvia was extremely important as the country, like other Baltic states, was skeptical about Serbia.

"Those are countries that are quite skeptical not only about the EU enlargement agenda, which they might even be supporting in some parts, but about reforms that are underway in Serbia, and due to the failure to impose sanctions on Russia. They very often deny support to us on our further European path, as well as the green light to open the cluster that deals with the economy and competitiveness, but other clusters, too, I believe. That is why we need to have a presence here," Brnabic told reporters after a meeting with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics and Parliament Speaker Daiga Mierina.

Brnabic noted that there was an important political corridor between the Nordic and Baltic states and they were a part of EU member states that did not "overly favour" the Serbs.

"Good meetings also with the president of Latvia and their parliament speaker, as well as a very good meeting with the Latvian Institute for International Relations, where a former Latvian president is one of the members. Therefore, he is very influential. Under Chatham House rules, we are not allowed to speak about all the things we discussed there and the topics we covered, but the meeting was good, good for our mutual understanding and for understanding Serbia's policy and our aspirations as well as what they could advise us to do going forward to be able to count on their support more," Brnabic said.