(ANSA) - ROME, APRIL 01 - Foreign Minister Luigi DiMaio met his Serbian counterpart, Nikola Selakovic, with whom he laid the foundations for a Memorandum of Understanding, underlining that Italy "attributes strategic value to cooperation with Belgrade" and hoping for Serbia's future entry into the EU.
"We talked about the prospects for European integration of Serbia that Italy supports with firm conviction - said Di Maio -. We are in fact convinced that the future of Serbia lies in Europe. With this goal in mind - he added -, I expressed the hope that Belgrade may give new impetus to the reform process necessary to bring the country closer to the European goal.
During the meeting "the excellent state of bilateral relations" between the two countries was underlined.
In 2020 Italy was the third supplier country of Serbia and the second importer.
"An important fact - said Minister DiMaio -, made possible also by the presence in Serbia of more than 600 Italian companies, which employ about 34 thousand people.
We can therefore already count on a solid partnership - he added -, which we aim to strengthen by exploiting opportunities that will open up in the telecommunications and circular economy sectors ".
"With Minister Selakovic - he continued - we have also agreed to intensify cooperation between our ministries on political and security issues through the signing of a specific Memorandum of Understanding which will allow closer collaboration between our diplomacies".
"The intensification of our cooperation appears even more appropriate in light of the important challenges that our countries are facing with the pandemic emergency that is still underway. LaSerbia - he concluded - is concretely helping the Balkan region and I personally wanted to thank my colleague Selakovic for this".
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