"Turbulent times ahead, good-neighborly ties important"

"Turbulent times ahead, good-neighborly ties important"

Speaking after a meeting with Romanian PM Dacian Ciolos, Vucic thanked him for Bucharest's "major support for the territorial integrity

and sovereignty of Serbia" and, in particular, its support for Serbia's EU path.

"I want to express great gratitude for the fact that Serbs and Romanians have had good relations for decades and centuries now," Vucic said.

Development of economic relations is particularly important, Vucic said, announcing that the border crossing between Nakovo, Serbia and Lunga, Romania, would start operating around the clock.

The volume of bilateral trade is good and stands at 1.13 billion euros, Vucic said, according to Tanjug.

According to the Serbian government's website, Vucic also stated that Serbia "takes care of the Romanian national minority and is working to resolve specific problems faced by Romanians in Serbia."

There are 11 municipalities in the northern province of Vojvodina in which members of the Romanian ethnic minorities make up more than one percent of the population, he said.

"Most of them are in the municipality of Alibunar, where they make up 26.4 percent of the population and where they are almost completely satisfied and there are no problems," Vucic said.

"However, in eastern Serbia there are some disagreements, primarily because of the relations between the two churches - but things are starting to be solved there too," according to the prime minister.

Vucic said that he and his Romanian counterpart discussed the Romanian language – teachers, textbooks in Serbia and students, stressing that our country will enable everyone to learn the language.

"If the prime minister of Romania is interested, we can visit this part of Serbia together, and Serbia can also hire teachers from Romania, because we lack teachers for the standardized Romanian language," he said.

The common goal of members of the Serbian minority in Romania and the Romanian minority in Serbia is to be proud of the good life with no major problems, Vucic added, noting that he is aware that this is not entirely the case.