PM: EP resolution is offensive and disturbing

PM: EP resolution is offensive and disturbing

"We did not wish to run and hide from something we did not understand and something that, it seems to us, even those who voted in favor did not understand," Vučić said.

According to him, the European parliament was accommodating towards hatred, xenophobia, and ghosts of the past, instead of "helping to finally heal the Balkan wounds."

Dismissing the resolution as irrelevant as it is not binding, "and to all intents and purposes represents nothing," he said it at the same time pointed out to "important things" that should be brought to the attention of Serbian citizens.

"This should be a sort of a lesson to Serbian citizens, for them to see how they treat us, what they really think about us, and the kind of trouble and hardship we will be facing, although some of it is objective, on our European road and in our near future," Vučić said.

He at the same time thanked "Bulgarian MEPS and Tanja Fajon" for "attempting to talk some sense into other MEPs."

According to him, the motive behind the resolution passed today was "either hypocrisy of incredible proportions, or a desire to harm Serbia":

"There's no other possibility. There's nothing in the Serbia of today that could connect our authorities to Vojislav Šešelj - about whom I don't even want to talk."

"Those who submitted the motion wanted to demean Serbia's reputation, because it is no longer small and irrelevant as it was, because it is no longer a punching bag. Its economy will no longer be weaker than it has been, because there are parameters that show what a country will look like in two or three years, and those parameters show we will have a brighter future than some in the region."

Vučić then said that his government's job was "to continue to fight for Serbia, so it is a better place for citizens to live," and added:

"Who released Šešelj from the Hague, us or you? Did you consult us? No. We were taking care of our citizen. You did not inform us about the conditions under which he was released. There was one set of conditions six months ago, you erased them, and did not let us know. Šešelj's policy no longer exists in Serbia. Should this figure, whom you wholeheartedly support - because you have no other way to campaign except based on hatred towards Serbia - should he be arrested by us because of hate speech toward me or Tomislav Nikolić?"

"Why didn't you pass an EP resolution on the Nazi Šimunić, on Thompson, on Gotovina, who was accused of most serious war crimes," Vučić asked.

He was making a reference to footballer Josip Šimunić and singer Marko Perković aka Thompson, who promote the Ustasha - the regime of the Independent State of Croatia (HDZ), a WW2-era Nazi entity - and former Croatian General Ante Gotovina, who was acquitted of charges of war crimes committed against Croatia's ethnic Serbs during the 1995 Operation Storm.