Vucic: Elections due in late 2026 but may he held earlier

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday evening early parliamentary elections in Serbia were due in late 2026 but might be held earlier.

"I am hoping they will be held at the end of the year, but they may also be held earlier. We may be even more accommodating (to political opponents demanding elections). The competent institutions will make a decision on that. And those are not them, but me," Vucic said on Pink TV.

Asked if he would focus on becoming PM after the expiry of his presidential term, Vucic said he hoped he would not but that he did not rule out that possibility.

"If we see that it is possible for us to win without me being a candidate, I will definitely not be PM. If we see that it is impossible to do it in another way, it is possible, but not certain, that I will make a different decision. We assess results and look at how things are going, and we will make a decision accordingly," Vucic said, noting that the decision would be a collective one, not his own.

Vucic: Discussions about NIS difficult, January 15 a turning point

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday evening Serbia was under the toughest pressure and that discussions about its Russian-majority owned oil company NIS were difficult, and noted that January 15 would be a turning point when the authorities would do their job.

NIS is under US sanctions due to its Russian majority ownership.

"I have said that January 15 will be a turning point - then we will do our job," Vucic said on Pink TV.

He said he understood what the US was doing, as well as what Russia was doing.

"Serbia is under the toughest pressure. I cannot explain to you how difficult those discussions are and I do not want to say more about it. They are horrific. And it is terribly difficult to protect our interests, but I am determined, and we will do that," Vucic said.

Commenting on Serbia's attempts to maintain a neutral position between the East and the West, Vucic said Serbia was neutral, which he noted was "evident from the fact that no one likes us very much."

"You can see that, for four and a half years, we have not opened a single chapter, a single cluster (in the EU accession talks). Do you think life is nicer in Albania, or that Montenegro is a much more orderly country?" he said.