The Danish ambassador to Serbia, Mette Kjuel Nielsen, stated in Bujanovac on April 10 that European integration should not be viewed primarily through money from the EU funds and that values, standards and laws, which Serbia is obliged to fulfill as a member candidate, are the key to admission.

Mette Kjuel Nielsen, along with the ambassador of Norway, Nils Ragnar Kamsvag, and the chairman of the National Council of the Albanians, Galip Beqiri, attended the panel discussion "With Dialogue Through Real Life", organized by the Center for Democracy and the Development of Southern Serbia.

Although the candidate status for EU membership that Serbia was recently granted is a great success, and a significant precondition for the arrival of foreign investors, the path to membership consists of a number of reforms which the Serbian authorities are claiming to want to carry out, Nielsen said.

She said that the huge funding Serbia has received from the EU funds and from some member countries, was given towards attaining values and standards, and that the EU requires all prospective member countries to strictly and precisely implement the law.

Kamsvag said that the citizens of Norway voted against EU membership at a referendum twice, but that the laws and the economy of this country, except in the fields of agriculture and fishing, are in full accord with the EU legislation.