Frédéric Mondoloni, the French ambassador to Serbia, said on Monday that French President, Emmanuel Macron would visit Belgrade in the next few weeks, after his previously scheduled stay was postponed due to the unrest in Paris, the Beta news agency reported.
Mondoloni told the Belgrade daily Vecernje Novosti that he was working with Belgrade authorities to determine a new date for a visit.
“I expect that to happen in the next several weeks,” the ambassador said.
He also said that France supported the Belgarde – Pristina dialogue on normalisation of relations, adding he had no information that the deadline for the end of talks was set for June this year.
But, he added that “it would be better if an agreement is reached rather sooner than later.”
Mondoloni went on to say that official Paris asked Pristina to revoke the decision on implementing the import duties on goods from Serbia and Bosnia and that he expected Kosovo to do that soon.
He added Macron and his host President Aleksandar Vucic would discuss the scope of the two countries’ economic cooperation, the French investments in Serbia, the situation in the region and the search for a solution with Kosovo.
The visit comes after the last year’s political gaffe when Vucic was in Paris for the celebration of the Remembrance Day commemoration in Paris and was seated in the third row across the aisle from the main guests and Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaci.
That caused outrage in Serbia, with the Serbian media reporting that the country had been humiliated in Paris and that that was no accident.
“Serbia’s history was buried (in Paris) in a pragmatic wave of daily political interests, and the French organisers of the ceremony should be ashamed,” the Politika daily reported then.
Mondoloni apologised to Vucic and Serbia’s people for this on two occasions, saying that the gaffe was “no more than a protocol mistake.”
(N1, 28.01.2019)
This post is also available in: Italiano