The importance and healthy state of bilateral relations between Italy and Serbia and the Italian government\u2019s strong support for Belgrade\u2019s accession to the European Union. These were the topics at the centre of discussions during Deputy Foreign Minister Marta Dass\u00f9\u2019s mission to Serbia on 8 October. The visit came one week before the third Italian-Serbian inter-governmental summit, which takes place on 15 October 2013 in Ancona. During the mission, Dass\u00f9 had talks with a number of senior members of the Serbian government, including the Premier Ivica Dacic, the Deputy Premier, Aleksandar Vucic, and Foreign Minister Ivan Mrkic.<\/P>
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Belgrade\u2019s reforms will encourage Italian investment<\/STRONG><\/P> \u201cItaly and Serbia are linked by very strong, and sound, bilateral relations. The third inter-governmental summit taking place next week in Ancona will set the seal on this relationship, which is highly important both to Italy and to Serbia\u201d. The point was underscored to journalists by Marta Dass\u00f9 at the end of her meeting with the Serbian Foreign Minister, Ivan Mrkic. Bilateral relations which could be further strengthened following the package of economic measures that have been approved by the government in Belgrade, as Minister Mrkic informed Deputy Minister Dass\u00f9.<\/P> \u201cThe package contains very important provisions and reforms that will improve the economic climate and encourage Italian investment in Serbia\u201d, commented Dass\u00f9. She added that the reform programme could also pave the way for an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). An agreement that would be very important to Serbia, where about 500 Italian companies currently operate. <\/P> We\u2019re counting on closer integration between Serbia and the EU, says Deputy Minister<\/STRONG><\/P> <\/STRONG><\/P> The meetings in Belgrade were an opportunity for the Italian Deputy Foreign Minister to discuss numerous wide-ranging questions with her Serbian hosts: from the preparations for the inter-governmental summit in Ancona to the development of the Adriatic-Ionian strategy to Serbia\u2019 European integration process. On this last point, Dass\u00f9 assured her hosts of Italy\u2019s strong support for Serbia\u2019s accession to the EU. She underscored that the Italian-Serbian summit on 15 October will also provide Belgrade with technical support to address some of the negotiating chapters. <\/P> \u201cWe\u2019re counting on closer integration between Serbia and the EU. A process that will be particularly significant in 2014, when Italy will hold the EU Presidency in the second half of the year. We\u2019ll be able to cover part of the road together in Europe\u201d, commented the Deputy Minister. She also mentioned the consultancy position on EU issues that the former Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, has accepted from Serbia\u2019s deputy premier. According to the schedule agreed by the European Council in late June 2013, Serbia will begin its EU access negotiations by the end of January 2014, once the commitments it has undertaken have been implemented. <\/P> Kosovo: local elections will be as representative as possible<\/STRONG><\/P> Marta Dass\u00f9\u2019s mission also touched on the progress made in Brussels on 7 October by Premier Dacic and his Kosovar counterpart, Hashim Thaci, in relations between the two former Yugoslav countries. The two heads of government signed an agreement that will allow Serbian politicians to visit Kosovo, including during the election campaign, without further restrictions and on the basis of the arrangements currently in force. The agreement has eliminated a dangerous potential source of friction between Serbia and Kosovo in the run-up to the latter\u2019s local elections on 3 November 2013. <\/P> For Italy, it is important for the elections to be fair and above board and as representative as possible, with the participation of the Serbian population. As Deputy Minister Dass\u00f9 remarked, \u201cthe proper conduct of the voting in Kosovo is an important step in opening Serbia\u2019s EU accession negotiations next January\u201d. <\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The importance and healthy state of bilateral relations between Italy and Serbia and the Italian government\u2019s strong support for Belgrade\u2019s accession to the European Union. These were the topics at the centre of discussions during Deputy Foreign Minister Marta Dass\u00f9\u2019s mission to Serbia on 8 October. The visit came one week before the third Italian-Serbian […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9,42,399],"class_list":["post-15676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-approfondimenti","tag-europa","tag-unione-europea","tag-vice-ministri-e-sottosegretari-precedenti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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