Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Wednesday that official Belgrade will respond to calls to align with the European Union decision to impose sanctions on Russia in the next 48 hours.

“I had a long conversation with the outgoing Prime Minister … We did not look for excuses because the government is outgoing. We will answer fully in the next 48 hours,” he told reporters in Spain, adding that he has scheduled meetings with officials of the US, Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy as well as the EU on Thursday. “We will express concrete views on the issue 24 hours after that at the latest,” he said. According to Vucic, those views “will be based on respect for international law and will be absolutely principled and will not differ from what we said in 2000, 2015 and today”.

Serbia will continue trying to preserve its interests even though many people don’t like that, he said. “The important thing for Serbia is to keep the peace and economic stability … and we have not intention of becoming part of any wider wars,” Vucic said.