"Berlin Process must not be substitute for EU integration"

"Berlin Process must not be substitute for EU integration"

The gathering was organized by the Foreign Trade Organization of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce and themed "Southeast Europe: Striving for Competitiveness."

According to Joksimovic, Vienna has been providing for years a strong support for further integration of Serbia into the EU both in political and economic sense.

"The Berlin Process in no way should be, must not be and is not a substitute for the European integration process for each of the countries in the region, especially for Serbia, which has already opened a lot of chapters," she reiterated.

The Berlin Process is important in terms of infrastructure, energy, transport and social cohesion, she said, and "pointed out that Serbia expects to open at least two more chapters by June, and specified that it will open Chapter 29 which is related to the customs union, and Chapter 7 which covers intellectual property rights."

"We prepared a negotiating position for several economic chapters. These are all positive signals to investors and an indication that certain standards have been reached," Joksimovic underlined.

The minister said that Austria is "one of the strongest partners on Serbia's European path - this is confirmed by the fact that Austrian investors invested EUR 3 billion in Serbia."