The President of the Republic of Cyprus met with the President of the Republic of Serbia, in Belgrade

The President of the Republic of Cyprus, Mr Nikos Christodoulides, met today with the President of the Republic of Serbia, Mr Aleksandar Vučić, in Belgrade.

During their tête-à-tête meeting, President Vučić said: “Dear President, dear friend, dear brother, thank you for coming to Serbia. And I hope that you and your people really feel yourself at home here in our country. We are profoundly grateful to Cyprus, to you personally, for being very supportive not only to Serbia’s European Union (EU) path, but also to developing our bilateral cooperation in all different fields.

I was analysing and scrutinising all our numbers. And speaking about services, the numbers are pretty much OK, but we need to do something regarding trade turnover and trade exchange. I also think that our bilateral collaboration in the agricultural field and the innovation field, but also the military technical field and all the others should be improved in the near future. I am very happy to see you today in Belgrade and hopefully, this will contribute a lot to our better work and better cooperation in the future.

Once again, thank you very much for not only being supportive to our territorial integrity, but observing and respecting United Nations (UN) Charter and UN Resolutions, which is not always the case, even in the most developed European countries. The Serbian people will always be very thankful to Cypriots, to Cyprus, and you can always count on our support to territorial integrity of Cyprus. We consider your people as a brotherly nation and brotherly people, and we will do our best to work on this rational part of our cooperation, which means to invest huge efforts in order to boost our trade. And also, we can do something about bringing more tourists from Cyprus to Serbia and from Serbia to Cyprus.

Thank you once again for coming. I am interested in [our meeting], because you will assume the Presidency of the Council of the EU soon, and we would like to discuss with you and get as much advice as possible from your side on Serbia’s EU path”.

On his part, President Christodoulides said: “It is a great pleasure to be back in Belgrade for a substantial and a symbolic visit. Substantial, because, as you correctly mentioned, the Republic of Cyprus will assume the Presidency of the Council of the EU the first half of 2026, and symbolic, because this is the first visit as we are preparing to assume the Presidency of the Council of the EU.

With my visit today, I want to send a strong and clear political message about our commitment, about our readiness to work for substantial progress on the European perspective of Serbia. So, I am looking forward to discussing this issue; how we can coordinate our actions in order to see substantial progress during our Presidency.

At the same time, we will have the opportunity to discuss our excellent bilateral relations. We see eye to eye on all issues. Today, especially, I would like to see how we can enhance our cooperation on defence and security, but also tourism. A few weeks ago, Cyprus participated for the first time in the Tourism Fair here, in Belgrade. We are very glad to have more than 200% increase on the number of Serbians visiting Cyprus. We have direct flights every day, so there is a lot of potential there. At the same time, I would like to announce officially today that Cyprus will participate in Expo 2027 here, in Belgrade.

At the same time, and I want to reiterate our clear position on the issue of Kosovo, Cyprus fully supports the sovereignty, the territorial integrity of Serbia”.

The President of the Republic of Serbia replied: “I am really jubilant to hear this news about Expo, and thank you for being very constant and very persistent on international public law principles, observing international public laws principles, which we really appreciate and respect very much”.

The tête-à-tête meeting was followed by consultations in an extended format, and a working lunch.  

On the sidelines of the meeting, the Deputy Minister for European Affairs, Ms Marilena Rauna, who accompanied the President of the Republic, had a separate meeting with the Minister for European Integration of the Republic of Serbia, Mr Nemanja Starović.

(RM/NZ/MS)

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