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PAET: SERBIA WILL BE EU MEMBER IN FIVE YEARS

BELGRADE, Oct 6 (Tanjug) - The significant progress along its pathway toward the European Union (EU) achieved by Serbia in the past month encourages Estonia to extend full support to Belgrade in its European integration processes, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said on Monday. Addressing a joint press conference with Serbian counterpart Vuk Jeremic, Paet said he is impressed with the pace of the developments in Serbia in the past month. The ratification of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) is a good signal. There is also the ever improving atmosphere for investments in Serbia, he said. All this encourages Estonia to give 100 percent support to Serbia in its future steps toward the EU, Paet said. Estonian citizens were placed on the Schengen white list five years before that country became a full member of the EU, he said. Serbia is just as distant from the EU, he said, stressing that he believes Serbian citizens will also soon be given a visa-free regime for travel to EU member-states. Paet said he expects that the EU will soon decide that the parliaments of its member-states should begin the ratification of the SAA. He also said that he believes closer cooperation is necessary between Serbia and NATO. Ministrer Jeremic said that Estonia well understands the problems that Serbia is encountering along its pathway to EU membership, because Estonia also went through that difficult and traumatic process. The Serbian minister presented to his Estonian counterpart Serbia's initiative for seeking an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the unilateral act of the Pristina authorities, and expressed expectation that Estonia will not oppose this motion. Opposition to this motion would imply opposition to the fundamental right of a country to seek the resolving of problems through United Nations (UN) institutions, Jeremic said.