"I am particularly delighted to see Serbia back on the European track. This is thanks to the new government taking concrete action to meet the conditions," Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said at a joint press conference with Serbian chief negotiator Bozidar Djelic.
Rehn added that the signing of the SAA would require full cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal, which should lead to the arrest and handover of all war crimes indictees to the Hague-based tribunal.
The European Commission suspended SAA talks with Serbia last year because of its failure to fully cooperate with the Hague tribunal and to arrest Bosnian Serb wartime military commander Ratko Mladic and other fugitive indictees.
Last week the Commission decided to resume negotiations after Bosnian Serb general Zdravko Tolimir, charged with genocide in the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica in the summer of 1995, was arrested and transferred to The Hague.
Djelic, who is also Serbian Deputy Prime Minister in charge of European Integration, said that Mladic would be arrested and handed over as soon as he was located.
Rehn said that the SAA negotiations could be concluded in a few months' time. He also said that the talks were not connected with the process of defining the status of the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo.
"I don't think it would be fair that we would expect Serbia to make concessions on Kosovo because of achieving or returning to the European track," Rehn said, denying allegations that the EU was making concessions to Serbia in exchange for a more constructive approach to the Kosovo issue.
Rehn also warned Serbia to be careful not to be suffocated "in the hug of the big Russian bear." "We all want to have good relations with Russia, but one has to be careful that when hugging even a friendly big bear one wouldn't be suffocated," he said.
Russia is opposed to a Western-backed plan which proposes internationally supervised independence for Kosovo, siding with Serbia which rejects proposed independence for the province.
Asked if the Serbian government was favouring Russian companies in the process of privatisation, Djelic said that Serbian companies would be privatised through international tenders that would be open to all.
"There will be no favouritism, but we appreciate the Russian position," Djelic said.