BELGRADE, July 8. /TASS/. Shifting focus to BRICS is becoming the most significant alternative to Euro-integration for Serbian society and political movements, Chairman of Serbia’s Parliamentary Committee on the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region Dragan Stanojevic told TASS in an interview.
"Of course, the BRICS idea is a full-fledged alternative to Euro-integration and the like. Our party was effectively the first to raise this issue," he emphasized. According to Stanojevic, the party "We - The Voice from the People", together with the Socialist Movement, founded by former Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and ex-head of the Security and Information Agency (BIA) Aleksandar Vulin, have formed a designated parliamentary group for cooperation with BRICS. "We are lobbying for this cause. We are uniting around this idea and all the political movements support us, except the pro-Western ones. Society is also in support. In Serbia, more people would like to join BRICS than the EU - that is a fact, a very important one," the lawmaker noted.
He stressed that joining BRICS could significantly benefit Serbia economically. "Serbia stands to gain enormously from this, since, unlike the European market that always has a tendency to blackmail us with demands, this is a huge market where we can offer our goods, which are quite diverse, even if our production scale is modest. The entire country is a tapestry of various small industries, which would see a massive market open up before them. One has to be a fool to ignore the significance of the potential this could have for our country," Stanojevic stressed.
The lawmaker also added that unlike the EU, BRICS does not require Serbia to abandon traditional values. "We are talking about BRICS as a vast market and a community, or rather an organization, that sets no conditions and does not engage in blackmail. Compare Serbia to the European Union that demands we surrender Kosovo and Metohija and destroy our family values, our culture, our traditions - they are nothing alike. BRICS is an economic community. And that is precisely the path that Serbia should take. That is why this idea has such strong support and why we keep lobbying for it. It is highly relevant for Serbs," he emphasized.
Earlier, the Socialist Movement stated that Serbia would be better served trying to get into BRICS than the European Union, which is blackmailing the country with "humiliating preconditions". According to the party, the BRICS declaration adopted in Brazil offers Serbia real alternatives, unlike the empty promises of the EU.
Currently, official EU candidate status has been granted to Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine and Montenegro. Brussels is pressuring Serbia to grant this status to the unrecognized region of Kosovo, which effectively implies recognition of its independence.