Serbian President Boris Tadic said on Saturday that for the Western Balkan countries, the European future is the only way to resolve chronic problems, and that would certainly benefit the EU too.

The EU is not complete without the Western Balkans. The EU would not be able to resolve future problems, if it were not complete, Tadic said at a panel held as part of the international conference which is being organized by the oldest and largest opposition party in Germany - the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Tadic said that the Western Balkan countries must resolve their problems and that they cannot bring conflicts into the EU. We are aware of that, that is not easy, but we are working on that. However, without a European perspective, we will not be able to tell our citizens that in the future they will have a prosperous society without violence. Without the right perspective, it would be rather hard to develop our countries. We are not magicians, but ordinary people, Tadic said.

He underlined that he is aware that the EU is facing big problems and challenges, but if it remains focused on that exclusively and loses a wider perspective, at the end it will pay a high price.

Besides Tadic, former Italian prime minister Massimo D'Alema, leader of the Romanian Social Democratic Party Victor Ponta and former Bulgarian prime minister Sergei Stanishev also took part in the panel entitled “Strong social democracy for a strong Europe“.

According to Tadic, for the Balkan countries, the EU is still an attractive model because the peoples in the Balkans see the EU as a project of peace, one of the best in the history of mankind.

Serbian President Boris Tadic said on Saturday that he believes in close ties between Serbia and Germany, and that Serbia's European future is inseparable from these relations, which the German interlocutors should take into account.

I and all presidents of the Democratic Party have been investing great efforts into establishing the best possible relations between Serbia and Germany because we firmly believe in close ties between the two countries, as well as that Serbia's European future is inseparable from these relations, Tadic said, answering a journalist's question whether Berlin's tough stand on Serbia's candidacy can be interpreted as a blow to the relations between the countries which were stabilized with certain difficulty after the war.

Underlining that he has great respect for German openness, honesty, and determination, Tadic said that Germany should take into account what Serbia has achieved in economic terms, as well as huge opportunities for cooperation in Southeastern Europe.