"Serbia survived a state of war, shelling and sanctions, it will certainly survive now. It survived the biggest deficit at the end of the Mirko Cvetkovic Cabinet, it will survive now. Serbia needs economic and political stability," Dacic told reporters after a meeting of the national emergency centre focusing on a Danube flood wave expected in Serbia in the middle of this week.
"Greece didn't go bankrupt, Serbia won't either," Dacic said.
According to Belgrade's electronic media, he said his government wanted to keep financial stability by cutting costs and the deficit. He said austerity was not enough to pull out of the crisis and that the ruling coalition leaders believed that the brunt of the anti-crisis measures should not be shifted onto citizens.
Serbian Radio-Television (RTS) reported last week that according to unofficial information, the measures moved to bail out the Serbian economy would help save about EUR 400 million by cutting the budgets of all ministries, and that salaries and pensions would not be frozen or cut.
Last week, Deputy PM Aleksandar Vucic said the situation in Serbia was "more difficult than even the opposition estimates," that "bills from previous decades are due" and that "the national economy isn't standing on its feet but stumbling."