Addressing a conference of the Atlantic Council of Serbia, Polt said the decisions Serbia's leaders would make in the coming months represented a challenge.
If you want to engage in true partnership with the Euro-Atlantic community, you will find ready partners, he said.
Polt was reacting to Serbian Prime Minister Vojslav Kostunica's statement a few days ago that "the policy of constant conditioning, which has been applied to Serbia for some time now, is deeply wrong and has had negative consequences so far".
European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn's spokeswoman Christina Nadj also reacted to Kostunica's statement. The media quoted her as saying that it was not serious to accuse the European Union of one's own failures and that full cooperation with the Hague war crimes tribunal was a long familiar condition for Serbia.
Belgrade's media quoted Srdjan Djuric, chief of the Serbian government's media relations office, as saying to Fonet agency that there was insufficient appreciation of the fact that the Serbian government had transferred 16 accused to the Hague tribunal. He added that it was in both Serbia's and the EU's interest to build partner relations instead of there being a policy of conditioning.
The chairman of the National Council for cooperation with the Hague tribunal, Rasim Ljajic, said Serbia was not in conflict with the EU.
"Our interest is to normalise relations with the EU," he told Radio B92, adding that neither the prime minister nor the government saw a Serbia-EU conflict as a perspective. He said one should point to the Union's mistakes but also adjust goals to objective possibilities and "the fact that Serbia's international standing is not great".
The European Commission said earlier this week it continued to be willing to resume negotiations with Serbia on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement the moment it established full cooperation with the Hague tribunal, which primarily means the arrest and extradition of Ratko Mladic.