A new Serbian Government was elected in the National Assembly on Thursday with 163 MPs voting in favor, out of 250. 62 were against, there were no abstentions, whereas 25 deputies were not present in the hall. Vučić's new cabinet has 16 ministries and three ministers without portfolio.

The 4-year mandate of the new government started to run from the moment the ministers took their oath of office, the text of which is as follows:

The last step (of Serbia) on its path to the EU has to be full normalization of relations with Kosovo, which to certain extend implies recognition, said Shkelzen Maliqi, the advisor to the Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.

Statement of the Serbian prime minister designate, Aleksandar Vučić, that “recognition of Kosovo would cut the Gordian knot, however it won’t be done”, Maliqi interprets actually as announcement that recognition could take place in the end.

Former US ambassador to Serbia William Montgomery expects stability in the Balkans, the fight against terrorism and the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina among the main issues to be discussed during the upcoming visit of US Vice President Joseph Biden to Serbia.

"I expect that Biden would push for the further progress in terms of the Brussels Agreement," Montgomery said to Tanjug.

U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden will visit Belgrade and Pristina at the beginning of next week, the White House announced on Tuesday.

During an August 15-17 tour of the Balkans, Biden will hold meetings with the president and the prime minister of Serbia and speak with the Kosovo authorities, Reuters has reported, quoting a White House statement.

The statement "did not say what subjects would be discussed," the agency noted.

The director of the Serbian Government’s Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Marko Ðurić, today stated that Kosovo has no place in the International Olympic Committee, nor it has place as an independent state at the Olympic Games.

Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Chepurin says it is "increasingly clear" the EU is lacks the strength to secure the implementation of Kosovo dialogue agreements.

"The European Union, with the consent of Belgrade, assumed the role of a mediator in resolving the conflict. But today it is increasingly clear that it lacks the strength to ensure the implementation of even the first (Brussels) agreement," the diplomat told TV Most from Zvecan, a town in northern Kosovo.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze met in Belgrade on Thursday.

They discussed "bilateral relations" and "agreed it was important that the leaderships of Serbia and Ukraine support the territorial integrity of both countries," Tanjug reported, quoting a statement issued by the Serbian government.

The chairman of the Serbian National Assembly's Judiciary Committee says there should be "no rush" in "removing the constitutional preamble on Kosovo."

"I personally think that we should not rush this, because there is the question of the order of events when it comes to Serbia's admission to the EU. We are optimistic, but that does not mean the job will go quickly," Petar Petrović, from the United Serbia (JS) party and the SPS-JS assembly club, told Tanjug on Wednesday.

53 percent of Serbians believe the country should continue with EU integration even after Britain's departure from the Union.

Tanjug said this quoting an article in Belgrade-based newspaper Blic, which reported the results of a survey conducted the Institute for European Affairs NGO.

The poll, done in the first half of July, will be presented on Thursday, July 28.

Next year, Serbia is facing changes in the Constitution. In addition to an independent judiciary, citizens will decide in a referendum, most likely, on deleting the preamble of Kosovo and reduction of the number of MPs.

Serbia will change at least two times the Constitution until entry into the EU.