President of Serbia talks to EL PAÍS about the Balkan country’s efforts to join the bloc, and how Kosovo is proving a sticking point

The existential journey that has taken Aleksandar Vučić to this point has been a long one. As a young man, the current president of Serbia was an ultra-nationalist of passionate rhetoric, and later he served as information minister under the dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Since then, Vučić has morphed into a fervent supporter of the European Union, and his mission now is to achieve membership for his country.

“Serbian society is kind of exhausted,” says Vučić, 48, in a personal interview conducted at the EU-Balkan summit held on Thursday in Sofia, Bulgaria. “We began the membership process in 2000 and we’ve been at it for 18 years. Let’s hope we’re ready to bring it to an end in 2025 [as the European Commission is proposing]. Although this is not a certainty; it depends on EU countries, and at the same time we’ve got Kosovo as an obstacle.”

See at: https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/05/18/inenglish/1526628902_698612.html