Macedonia and Serbia, both candidate countries of the European Union (EU), reiterated Monday that they would not implement the EU's sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis.
Macedonia and Serbia's foreign ministers, Nikola Poposki and Ivica Dacic, stressed that the two countries had to consider their own economic benefits when deciding whether to join the sanctions against Russia after they met Monday in Skopje, capital of Macedonia, Xinhua reported.
"We will approximate our policy, but we will take our own economic interests into consideration. Even Ukraine does not respect EU's sanctions towards Russia. Also Russia's import ban applies to the EU, but not to Ukraine. It seems to me that they can be in war and trade among themselves, and we are all left over to pay for the price," Dacic said.
Serbia has started EU accession negotiations from the beginning of this year. Still, Dacic said that it is very early for the country to align completely with EU's foreign policy.
Macedonia's prospects to join the EU are even vaguer, since the country is a candidate to join the union since 2005 and is still not allowed to start negotiations, mainly due to the unsolved name issue with Greece.