Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic said in the northern city of Novi Sad on Thursday he signed a joint Declaration which included four key European Union freedoms with Albanian and North Macedonian prime ministers Edi Rama and Zoran Zaev respectively, N1 reported.
Those four freedoms include the flow of goods, capital, services and people, Vucic said. He added the Declaration was meant for the benefit of the people who, as he put it, deserved better future, higher living standard and lower unemployment rate.
“We aim to create conditions for people to use only national IDs for crossing borders by 2021,” Vucic added, referring to the so-called ‘mini Schengen’ visa regime which was the main reason for organising the trilateral meeting.
He said that lorries in the Western Balkans were losing 26 million hours every year on border crossings, adding that the removal of those barriers would enable huge savings.
Vucic announced the next meeting in North Macedonia, on the Lake Ohrid, on November 10 when “the most concrete measures” would be agreed on.
He added he expected the EU to open accession talks with Tirana and Skopje.
Rama said that “we have a chance to learn how to do more, instead of waiting for others to give us more.”
He mentioned that there were some open issues in “the heart of the region,” but that they should not prevent the agreements concerning the entire regional population.
