Former president: Serbia should be compensated

Former president: Serbia should be compensated

Tadić, who in 2008, as the country's president, signed the agreement with Russia, further told a news conference on Thursday that the Russian side during the negotiations "did not allow for any clause which would protect Serbia in case the gas pipeline is not built."

Tadic said that adding such a clause was not possible because Serbia was the weaker party in the talks, and because the country's oil sector was about to collapse, so investments from a strategic partner - Gazprom - were necessary.

Asked whether he would now, if he were the head of state, sign such an agreement, Tadic said that there were more reasons in favor than against, "because it was about Serbia's energy security through the arrival of a strategic partner in NIS, which at that time nobody except Gazprom wanted."

On the other hand, without the energy agreement was signed South Stream would have bypassed Serbia, taking the shorter route through Romania and Bulgaria to Austria, Tadic said, and added that without the deal in place, Serbia would today be importing fuel, would have higher public debt and zero income from the oil mining rent.

Headded it was very important to know what exactly the government's position was in terms of the energy agreement and the cancellation of South Stream.

Tadić remarked that Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said the agreement was good, but one of his deputies, Zorans Mihajlovic, said it was bad - "so it's important to know what the government thinks - what Prime Minister Vucic is saying, what Minister Mihajlovic is saying, or perhaps Mihajlovic is accusing Vucic."

Tadic said that the announcement of the termination of interstate agreements between Russia and countries participating in the pipeline project was negative, adding that it was "difficult to say whether this is the final decision of the Russian side because such a decision also has a certain tactical dimension."

He pointed out to interests of both Russia and the European Union for cooperation in the gas sector due to rising demand in Europe for this fuel, and even Russia, he said, "cannot export all of its gas to China."

Tadic stressed that Serbia, in addition to diversification of gas supplies from Russia, must work on securing alternative gas sources, "such as, for example, from Azerbaijan to which we could connect via the Niš-Dimitrovgrad gas connection," and therefore, according to him, the country should be involved in these negotiations.