Milivojević: Kalas refused to take a picture with Vučić, that's a clear message

AUTHOR:M.J. GDNUS

"Kaja Kalas refused to take a picture with Aleksandar Vučić in Belgrade, that's a clear message. It's clear that the EU no longer sees Vučić as a European, he can no longer even put on that European facade, that European tailcoat that he wears over his radical overcoat," Democratic Party President Srđan Milivojević told N1.

The European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kalas, met with opposition representatives in Belgrade yesterday. What was discussed and who does she see as a credible partner?

"The issue is not whether the EU would see the opposition as a credible partner, but whether it would see Serbia as a credible partner, because the country would not be led by the SNS. Now Serbia is stopped on the path to European integration," Milivojević said on the Newsnight show.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, he adds, is no European.

"This is the same radical who has not deviated even a millimeter from the policy of 'kill one Serb, we will kill a hundred Muslims'. That is my impression after meetings with Marta Kos, in Brussels, and now with Kaja Kalas," he said.

In Brussels, Milivojević says, he received clear assurances that the SNS's mandate in the European People's Party (EPP) is over.

"They do not have a practice of expelling anyone... The unwritten rule in the EPP is that they never renounce a partner who is in power at the moment in a country, unless they create scandals like what our regime did. Viktor Orbán was forced to leave the EPP himself and look for a new group in the European Parliament. That is the fate of Aleksandar Vučić as well," Milivojević claims.

According to Milivojević, Kalas was interested in what was happening in Serbia, because it undermines the stability of the region more than the relations between Belgrade and Pristina did.

It is important, he says, that European officials "see Bosniak students and students from Šumadija praying together, dancing kolo".

And when asked if Kalas discussed detained prisoners, Milivojević says:

"It would be rude if not. I was detained 46 times as an opposition member, it would be incorrect if I did not say that an activist had his nose broken. She understood that, that political detainees' noses are broken in prison".