Srdjan Cvijic, President of the International Advisory Committee of the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, officially closed the Belgrade Security Conference. During his speech, Srdjan referred to the student protest in 1996 and 1997 where students carried a banner with the slogan ”Belgrade is the world”.  

Variety of topics and problems were discussed on this panel, from licence plates in Kosovo to the Franco-German initiative regarding Kosovo-Serbia dialogue. The panellists agreed that the relations between Serbia and Kosovo should be normalized but their opinions differed in the way how the future of relation should be comprehended. 

During the discussion, panelists largely agreed that Europe’s current dependence on the USA in terms of military security or information technologies is too strong. Therefore, they discussed the need of the EU to strive towards strategic autonomy which is however unlikely in the short term. Considering the renewed commitment to NATO because of the war against Ukraine, the panel also discussed the question of Serbia’s neutrality towards NATO in the course of its European integration process.