"Our position is that Serbia should be enabled to begin the accession negotiations. In that sense, we supported the negotiating framework and believe that Serbia should begin the negotiations in January at the latest," she said.
Pusic said Croatia insisted that the conclusions mention the alignment of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with Serbia given Croatia's EU entry on July 1 this year. "Serbia confirmed in its letter that it would honour the principle of traditional trade... It's additional security for something Serbia already confirmed in writing."
Serbia committed in October to honouring said principle by allowing Croatia to continue exporting cigarettes at preferential tariffs in the same volume as before Croatia's EU entry, but has not yet initialled the SAA.