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France's Macron visits Serbia to boost EU ties, go over Rafale deal.

France's President Emmanuel Macron travels to Belgrade on Thursday to reinforce ties with Serbia and bring it closer to the West, as the Balkan nation manages its European Union subscription bid and close ties with Russia and China.

Throughout his two-day see, Macron and his counterpart, Serbia's populist Aleksandar Vucic, strategy to discuss concerns consisting of the purchase of France's Rafale fighters, made by Dassault, in addition to energy and artificial intelligence.

It will be Macron's second conference with Vucic this year and follows the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Belgrade in May, highlighting Serbia's tactical position on the edge of the EU, with ties to the east and west.

In an op-ed piece in Serbia's pro-government Politika daily on Thursday, Macron wrote that Belgrade might maintain its independent posture only under the auspices of the EU.

When war as soon as again broke out on our continent, started by Russia, ... the concept that Serbia might seek its own method the everlasting video game of balancing between powers ... is just an illusion.

The EU remains Serbia's single biggest investor and hundreds of countless Serbs operate in Western-owned business.

Late on Wednesday, Vucic stated there were unsolved problems with the purchase of Rafale aircraft, approximated at around 3 billion euros ($ 3.34 billion).

It is not a question of the cost, it is a question of specific assurances ... we have been struggling with this for four days, he informed state RTS TELEVISION.

BASED ON RUSSIAN GAS

Aleksandar Zivotic, a history speaker at the Belgrade University, described the airplane sale as a historic and political departure from Soviet-Russian impact.

Such a military technology is not only bought with money, but with diplomacy position pledges, he said.

Belgrade curtailed military cooperation with Moscow after Russia attacked Ukraine and it has actually condemned the invasion, however unlike the EU and other Western nations, it has not imposed sanctions on Moscow.

Serbia's military and air force are loosely based upon Soviet innovation, but it has also purchased helicopters and transportation planes from Airplane, radars from Thales and France's Mistral surface-to-air missiles.

Belgrade, which looks for to diversify its gas supplies, is dependent on Russian gas and has the Kremlin's assistance in its opposition to the 2008 self-reliance of Kosovo.

Vucic stated he and Macron would take on cooperation in the fields of energy and artificial intelligence and that the 2 nations would sign a variety of corresponding contracts.

Before it joins the EU, Serbia would need to improve democracy, the guideline of law and judiciary, root out corruption, bureaucracy and organised crime, and align its diplomacies with those of Brussels, including the introduction of sanctions against Russia.

(source: Reuters)