Germany’s Ambassador in Serbia Anke Konrad told N1 on Monday that Berlin expects Serbia to join the European Union sanctions against Russia.

“We hope that Serbia, as an EU candidate country, will decide to join in the sanctions just like all the other countries of the Western Balkans have done but that is up to Serbia to decide,” she said in her first live interview to a Serbian media outlet. The ambassador added that Germany views Serbia which is developing well in many aspects “which is why we are investing a lot in cooperation with it”. She recalled that Germany is the biggest bilateral donor to Serbia.

“We want to give them (Serbians) an opportunity to accept EU values. We are aware that this can’t be done overnight but we expect that something must be done in the EU accession process,” she said.

According to her, alignment with EU foreign and security policies is the key issue in Serbia’s EU accession process. “Alignment includes customs issues and Serbia has progressed on that. The focus should not be narrowed to just one issue, that would not be fair,” Ambassador Konrad said.