In an extensive interview with Bosnian TV Face, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that cooperation in the region was necessary, as it was the only way for countries to progress and develop, and to prevent young people from moving abroad.

In the interview, Vucic talked about the procurement of vaccines, the Covax program and the covid vaccine passports.

It is interesting that at first Angela Merkel and Emanuel Macron were absolutely against covid passports, and now they are giving in to pressure. To be honest, I am not sure what this is about, said the Serbian president.

Vucic also talked about the common problems in the region, emphasizing that the coronavirus has changed everything.

We all have the same problems. I would point out one thing. Relations in the world, relations in Europe and the region are changing with tremendous speed. Those who were weak 7-8 years ago are now becoming strong and vice versa. The coronavirus especially changed that, Vucic stressed.

In relation to the journalist’s remark that the vaccine donation to BiH is a great political victory of Vucic and a great defeat of the Bosnian authorities, Vucic said that he thought differently and mentioned the Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.

I’m a little more experience than those people. They have a problem with many levels of decision-making, it was said at a meeting. I immediately told Ana Brnabiќ that we are making preparations. In Brussels, they talked to me about the Covax program, they told me that “it will be”, and I asked them “when it will be?”, said Vucic and added: When I asked them “when” for the fifth time and I did not get a specific answer, but they just told me that they would get it first and then us, I knew that we should immediately start preparing for the procurement of vaccines. My friend Zoran Zaev, of course, relied entirely on the EU because he was told so. We did not do that, said Vucic, reports face.ba.

The Serbian president stressed that meetings were arranged immediately.

We immediately started talks about procurement with the Americans. I “chased” Boris Johnson, I talked to him to get “AstraZeneca”, I talked to Vladimir Putin. I exchanged eight letters with Xi Jinping. I do not believe that this is a defeat for anyone here, but a defeat for all of us. Because we did not unite and did not know how to act together, he underlined.