President Of Serbia Offers Ultimatum To Russians Concerning On Oil Trade Of Serbia – The Balkan
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Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Monday the Serbian Government unanimously backed his proposal to grant the Russian side a 50-day deadline to find a new owner for the majority-Russian-owned Serbian Oil Industry (NIS). If no buyer is found, Serbia will install its own management team in the company and offer the Russians the highest possible price for their stake.
Vucic added that several ministers had pushed for immediate nationalization of NIS, but that his proposal ultimately won full cabinet backing.
“We are prepared to bear all the consequences for the next 50 days. We are ready for the refinery to stand idle, for everything to grind to a halt, we will manage, we will ensure the market is supplied. But after those 50 days, if no sale agreement has been reached, we will have no choice. Even then we won’t nationalize outright, we will first place the company under Serbian administration and then offer and pay our Russian friends the highest price we can,” Vucic told a press conference.
He repeated that “we are neither communists nor fascists” and said that, all things considered, three months is already more than enough time to wrap up talks on the change of ownership in NIS, because “we simply cannot survive longer than that”.
He emphasized that he made the same position clear in a letter sent to the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), while expressing hope that Washington would extend NIS’s operational license.
“I’m asking them to grant it, especially because of the personal guarantees I have given. I know they know that my word carries more weight than someone’s 1,000 signatures,” Vucic said.
He stressed that Serbia has to give a reasonable period of time to “our friends from the Emirates, Hungary and other countries” with whom the Russians are negotiating over NIS.
“We are not the owners. I tell the Americans: ‘What exactly do you expect us to do? We don’t own the company.’ How were we supposed to sell it in February when we’re not the owners and the other side wants to stay put and keep delaying the sanctions? There was literally nothing we could do,” Vucic said.
Responding to criticism that Serbia had failed to act earlier, Vucic said then how come the sanctions have been postponed all this time.