The EU spokesperson, Maja Kocijancic, rejected allegations that different standards apply to Spain and Catalonia than those applied to Serbia, in case of Kosovo, adding that the international law is universal and the EU fully respects it, Tanjug news agency reported.

“Kosovo is sui generis case,” she told Tanjug.

EXCLUSIVE / Serbia and Montenegro are seen as the two Western Balkan frontrunners to join the EU but Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić told EURACTIV.com in a wide-ranging interview that joining the soon-to-be 27-country bloc is a matter of endurance and not a competition.

“For Serbia, joining the EU is like a marathon,” Brnabić told EURACTIV. “When you run a marathon you are not competing against anyone else but yourself. In that sense, I don’t think any country should be bothered by who is the front or second runner.”

In the case of Kosovo was told that "unilateral moves are possible, and then you will depend on the affection of great powers" - there is no international law, this is the policy of force, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić told RTS.

Reactions of the EU and the member states to the referendum in Catalonia are unanimous - they are for the constitutional unity of Spain, as French President Emanuel Macron said. The EC spokesman points out that Kosovo and Catalonia cannot be compared, reports RTS.

Tough to defend ‘rhetorical mimicry’ and an attempt to cover up EU's participation in the Kosovo's secession by double standards - this is how experts of international law and analysts estimate the EC's view that the Catalan case cannot be compared to Kosovo, since Serbia, unlike Spain, is not a member EU, writes daily Večernje Novosti.

Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said on Sunday that Serbia firmly supports the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Spain, as well as its unity.

He added that Spain is one of Serbia's greatest friends.

"I would ask all political factors not to play with this issue," Dacic said after the opening of an exhibition marking 70 years of UNICEF ​​in Serbia.

The heavy-handed attempts of the Spanish police to stop a Catalan referendum on independence on Sunday from taking place exposed predictable divisions in the Balkans.

While some politicians who support regional autonomy in the Balkans have come out in support of the Catalan referendum, most national governments - wary of separatism in their own countries - have lined up behind Spain.

Supporters and opponents of Catalonia's right to hold an independence referendum from Spain have emerged on foreseeable lines in the Balkans.

Vice President of the Socialist Party of Serbia Branko Ružić told Austrian Presse that Serbia doesn't have to recognize the independence of Kosovo, but it will become a full member of the EU "with exclusion of the territory of Kosovo". He notes that since Slovakia and Spain are not recognizing Kosovo then Serbia does not have to also, when it joins the EU.

Spain supports the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia and it will never recognise Kosovo's independence, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel García-Margallo said on Wednesday.

This year marks the centenary of the diplomatic relations between Serbia and Spain, where Spain's support for Serbia's territorial integrity is a crucial pillar, Margallo said after a meeting with Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), is organizing a two-day conference with focus on the development of prospects for economic cooperation in the fields of transport, infrastructures, trade, energy and digital connectivity, as well as the role of the private sector in boosting the economic growth.

Parliament of Catalonia officially launched the process of secession from Spain, which according to the Kosovo model should be finished without a referendum, in no later than eighteen months. A total of 72 MPs from ideologically different parties, united by a common goal to achieve the independence of the Spanish province, voted for a resolution that envisages the establishment of an independent republic of Catalonia, until 2017. Against were 63 MPs, but based on the previously adopted laws such decision requires a simple majority.