Macut: Our foreign policy must be brave, consistent, European future the best response

BELGRADE - Serbia's PM-Designate Djuro Macut said in the parliament on Tuesday that, in the international arena, he saw Serbia as a bridge, an initiator and a partner, a country that believed an European future was the best response to a stable, modern and just Balkans, as well as a country shaping that response it its own way - openly, independently and proudly.

Presenting his cabinet's programme to MPs, Macut said foreign policy was not only about dialogue skills, but also a reflection of inner strength, consensus and clarity of goals, as well as of consistency when it comes to values, and noted that the Serbian diplomatic network must transform to become an instrument of influence generating concrete results.

"We want Serbia as a bridge, as well as an initiator, a partner, but also as a voice. A Serbia that does not forget its traditional allies," he said.

He said the legacy of the Serbian diplomacy in the 20th century and the lively diplomatic activity of the state leadership in the past decade had opened a new corridor towards Serbia's old friends in the East and the South that were now seeing intensive development and "conquering new horizons of progress."

"With the large Eurasian region and the promising African continent we will continue to explore new approaches to cooperation, striving to strengthen existing and build new ties," Macut noted, adding that the new government would not neglect the American continent, the Indian subcontinent or southeast Asia, either.

From our "European fatherland," the government will extend a hand of cooperation to all and build partnerships for the present as well as the future, he said.

"In a time of accelerated global changes, our policy must be brave when it comes to ideas, but also consistent when it comes to interests. We want to step out of the framework of standard diplomacy and offer new approaches, and not to be just a country that participates, but also a country that initiates, and not to follow the agendas of others, but to secure our own," Macut said.

"Foreign policy is no longer just a relationship among states - it is a relationship among economies, sciences, cultures and values. We are not building this network for the sake of the expectations of others, but for the sake of our own vision. Serbia's European path is not a one-way street - it is a process in which we, too, are shaping the future of Europe. Serbia is not approaching the EU from the position of someone who is asking for something, but out of belief. The belief that a European Serbia is needed by Europe as much as we need the EU. That relationship is based on a partnership, on mutual respect, and not on asymmetry," Macut said.

He noted that Serbia's EU path was neither forced nor passive, but a strategic decision by a conscientious and modern state that wanted to be a part of an orderly community as a partner.