Cooperation improves region's EU perspective: Balkan leaders

BELGRADE, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- Leaders of Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece agreed on Saturday that the whole region needs to be included in the European Union (EU) and that the cooperation on joint projects can bring the region long-awaited prosperity and stability.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic hosted the second meeting with prime ministers of Bulgaria, Romania and Greece Boyko Borissov, Mihai Tudose and Alexis Tsipras at the building of the Serbian presidency in Belgrade.

Borissov said at a press conference after the meeting that the four leaders were talking how to organize the Balkans in a way that would make people's lives better and to convey the message to Brussels that "the Balkans is safe and predictable with us, and it will create no problems".

"Our friendship is not directed against anybody 00 neither against Russia, or Turkey, or the United States nor the EU. We just wish to attract investments so that we can build infrastructure, because this is a guarantee that there will be no more war," he said, announcing the support of Bulgaria for the EU accession of Serbia and all other countries of the Western Balkans.

He announced that the Bulgarian presidency over the Council of Europe, which is about to start next year, will be focused to include the whole of Balkans in the EU, and to solve problems these countries are facing with.

Tsipras welcomed Borissov's idea to use the presidency to promote the joint ideas and attitudes of the whole Balkans and estimated that meetings like this are constructive and inspirational for the future perspective of the Balkans.

"We cannot wait for a representative of some other great power to tell us what to do and to take us by the hand and show us. We have to cooperate and to have our own initiative as well as to promote peace and stability in the region," he said.

Tudose said that Serbia's European integration is already an ongoing process visible in joint infrastructural projects and cultural cooperation.

He continued that the meetings like this are useful to harmonize solutions for problems of each of the four countries.

Vucic said that the political talks among the four countries focused on the increase of trade and joint infrastructural projects such as the interconnection with highways, high-speed railways and gas pipelines.

"We expect that the Serbia's trade with these three countries will be more than 3 billion euros in the next year," Vucic said, adding that the three prime ministers brought the spirit of European friendship to Belgrade.

The quadripartite meeting was held for the first time in Varna, Bulgaria while the third will be held in March in Bucharest, Romania and the fourth in Greece in May, aiming to make the cooperation permanent. Enditem