Mr. President, thank you for being here. It's a great honor and pleasure to have you with us and to discuss, perhaps you know in our part of the world, the most important issue which is the future of our continent, the future of Europe, of the organization of Europe, of the European Union. But of course it also goes beyond that because whatever the limits of the European Union are going to be, no matter whether we go to a federation, confederation, and so forth, Europe is also a large continent ill-defined geographically. And I think that your vision on the future of Europe is important because Serbia is and has always been, always by historical standards, a key country of what we call Eastern Europe in a large sense. So, Mr. President, my first question to you: you have listened also to the previous debate which was in that sense a kind of a good introduction for our debate. So, my first question to you will be: how do you look at Europe? Currently, you have already very profound experiences as president of your country for 11 years now.
No, it's less than 20. No, it's 11 years, no? I don't know. I should know, but it's actually 9 years as a president and 3 years as a prime minister.
Yeah, oh yeah, so 12 years. 12 years, yes. Exactly. So, it also gave you a lot of experience of European policy and foreign affairs in general. So, what is your vision of current Europe and the direction where we are heading?
Thank you very much for having me here. Mr. Montbrial, I was listening very carefully to all of your panelists, all of your guests and learned a lot from some data and got some new ideas. But I need to say that I see things at least a little bit differently. First of all, I think that as Europeans, all of us, we are losing many important battles and we always think that we are the smartest, that this is the nicest part of the world, which I still believe it is, always undermining and underestimating the others. Not being able to understand that we are lagging behind the other parts of the world and we believe that in a way that the globe does not exist in a real sense because everything that is important is actually happening here on European soil and that's not true. And we are lagging behind not only the United States of America on artificial intelligence, robotics, but we are lagging behind China and this is becoming a bigger and bigger gap between us and it's somewhere else. It's like not happening in the world that exists today. And we believe, which is very wrong, that we have a sort of moral and democratic superiority over the others, which is not true at all. But we still believe in that. It's like a Western Roman Empire not understanding what was going on on its borders and not recognizing it and then collapsed. I don't think that Europe will collapse. It will never happen. But with all these numbers in 2100, which means within 70 years, we'll be 5.8%, if I'm not mistaken, 5.8% of overall world's population. Speaking about number one, demographic issues, number two, new technologies, AI, robotics, number three, security and defense issues, as Europe, we are lagging behind. Whether we are ready to admit that or not, that's another issue. We can still live in our own bubbles believing that we are more important than the others, than those who are much stronger than we are. I believe it's a big mistake. And that's it, you know, many of us can always get some applauses, nice speeches, but my question to you, because you are much smarter than I am, and it's not very difficult for me to admit it, and even more experienced, which is not easy to be, very honest, what we changed within our own societies, what we did to change the situation in the last 20 years and what we are able to do anyway in the next 20 years. I don't believe that we can do a lot. We'll have to belong to Europe, we'll be in Europe, we'll have the same destiny with you, but I'm not very much positive about the overall future that we are building here because we need to... I'll tell you why. Number one, let's take China as an example. They are more diligent than us, more dedicated, they have an eye of a tiger, ready to overtake everybody in the world. We are not. Let's discuss our working hours and our unions, what they ask for. What's the time of digital laziness within our working hours and what's the time of digital laziness within working hours in China, let's say. We cannot compete with them on anything. And it won't be changed. We can flatter ourselves, we can lie to ourselves but working 4 hours a day effectively comparing to 8 to 10 hours a day, you cannot reach and you cannot accomplish, you cannot achieve the same goals and the same results. And this is not going to be changed. We became fully dependent on social networks, we bring political decisions not in accordance with the real goals, with the real targets. We are doing it just to flatter public audience and social networks. I'll tell you one example. We had negotiations with Pristina in Brussels. And two European representatives said to me... I said to them, 'Okay, now we delivered everything. Okay. Will you be able to say this openly because of the other side not going to make any kind of real issues on this topic?' And they said to me openly, 'Alexander, we have a problem with the army of bots, with the army of trolls on social networks because if we say this and that, we are going to be hugely attacked by those people and European Commission cannot stand that.' This is, I can tell you even, you know, I was listening that from Josep Borrell and Miroslav Lajčák. You can ask Miroslav Lajčák even today, he'll tell you this. And I was saying, 'Well, it means that you are bringing up your decisions in order to please people in social networks. What can we expect in the future?' And this is how it goes. Because everybody knows what people like to hear. But what was the real decision that we brought in the recent years that changed the trajectory of our... when I will speak about it, how we going to resolve low level of growth in Europe. Because okay, is this the finest place in the world? Yeah, it is. But what was the growth rate in the last 10 years? Not 1 year, not 2 years, not 5 years, 10 years, 15 years. Can you compare it with Chinese growth rate? Can you compare it with American growth rate? We cannot. We are like... Is it going to be changed next year or this year? No. No, it was foreseen that European Union will have, and Eurozone in particular, let's say, 0.7% growth rate. Now it goes down to 0.4%. It'll go down to 0.3%. And these are things that we need to discuss. But we need to understand our position. The world is not only Europe. And we have to understand our position in that world. Serbia is too small. We are not a significant country even for Europe. But when mentioning this at the previous presentation, Iceland and Montenegro. This is altogether less than 1 million people. Less than 1 million people and what is the real gain? What is the real change? And speaking about Ukraine, it's great. I believe that Catalin was speaking about it. We need Ukraine because of their great security structure, because of the safety issues and everything else. Really good. Great. But what would be the territory of Ukraine that we will accept as a part of Europe? Because everything is difficult. And what was resolved in the recent years? Almost nothing. We are surviving day by day expecting that something might come out of the blue, that something will save us and that's it.
Well, that is your diagnosis.
That was too much. No, no, no, no, no. It's not too much. It's too little. I can go. But no, no, no.
No, no. That's your diagnosis. Well, perhaps we should try the next 13 minutes or so be a little more optimistic even if just a little bit. But before moving, you know, Rutger, I don't even know if he's still here. Probably. Yeah, I see Mr. Rutger over there. No, but said that it's important to save the concept and reality of the West, you know. Is the West a pertinent, a relevant concept for you, the West?
Yes, but I can say I learned a lot from Mr. Rutger on everything that he was speaking today. But I have different beliefs. I don't believe that it was all about Trump administration. I believe that it started during Obama's tenure. Then it was continued during Biden's administration. If you analyze one of the most important acts, it was the Inflation Reduction Act. Something for internal issues in United States of America directed to... But it was also very much, I cannot say anti-European, but it was making another path for the United States of America. If you ask me, I don't believe in this unity. I believe that even von der Leyen's approach towards that was more rational, more realistic. And I don't think that changing the administration in the future will bring us big news on bringing back the long-lasting unity of Europe and United States of America. United States of America will have its own battle with China on all different issues. And I don't know what Europe will do. And if you want to ask me about solutions, I'm not that smart as your previous guests. I really mean it. And I have no solutions. I see the results. You know, it's like scrutinizing and analyzing elections in one country. I know the results and I can see who made some mistakes, who made a good campaign, and what should have been done differently or whatever. But I see, to be very frank with you, no big solutions. Asking us as a small country comparing to big Europe, dare to say even insignificant. For me, the most significant, but for you, insignificant. And I believe that we should go with some strategic solutions. We should be all of us more courageous and more open for changes. Because if it's all about summoning someone about moral superiority and democratic values and everything else, my question would be, is there anyone in this whole beautiful hall here in Chantilly that believes that, let's say, Romania and Bulgaria were in a better shape in 2007 than Serbia in 2026? I'll tell you, no serious people that would believe in that. But in the meantime, everything has changed, but we didn't notice it. Everything around us in today's world. How Europe will overcome this, I don't know. And I don't think that all the problems will be solved if someone accepts my or Edi Rama's ideas to bring us to Europe even without having our commissioners, without having veto right, without having even a vote within European Commission or within European Parliament. Because people will always say, we don't need it. That's not popular in our countries because people are fed up with all these foreigners, newcomers, and the others. I believe that Europe needs bold strategic decisions. But that's what I think. Which will not guarantee an absolute progress.
Yes, but you know, you said Serbia is a small country. But you know, here the World Policy Conference, as you know, because we like small. Small is beautiful.
