[Music] [Applause] well Dear Mr President dear Alexander vuic president of the Republic of Serbia please a warm Applause again [Applause] milora toik president of the Republic [Applause] zska Prince Philip of Serbia is among us today former Federal counselor Dr Kristoff bler is here very pleased to see you and of course our former National councelor and great Swiss entrepreneur Peter sper a warm welcome here in Sur then I want to say hello and thank you to the ambassador of Serbia in burn to Goran bradic without him we would not be here his heroic efforts to make
it possible thank you very much and we will never forget his impeccable rightand man buan stanovic you are the Novak choic of Serbian diplomacy thank you very much for being here then Miko shitz the consul general of Serbia a warm welcome Boro bronza ambassador of Bosnia heroa and numerous other ambassadors from a lot of countries here in Switzerland thank you very much for coming a great welcome to you all ladies and gentlemen dear guests welcome to Zurich welcome to the do the grand welcome to the second Zurich speech one year after prime minister Victor Orban
was here and opened the discussion we are very proud we are very happy that we have our high guest the president of Serbia um here in the time of Advent but in a very dark time and this is why we have started our little candle here that there is a silver lining that there is a beam of light even in times of Darkness Advent time Advent site means that we tune our souls into the receiving mode we start to listen more than we talk we start to listen to other voices and this is the goal
of this event here organized by V which is extremely important to us it's an event which wants to further International understanding open International Dialogue on the basis of Swiss neutrality our guest of today Serbia's President Alexander vuic impresses me a lot especially since we have met in summer when I had the privilege to interview him because he's a man who speaks with a soft voice in a time when everybody is screaming we have a lot of politicians today who are clenching their fists but to my perception president vuic is a Statesman who is extending his
hand to greet other people and not to make a fist to me president vuic you are a man of peace and Serbia is an extremely interesting country with a rich history at the breaking point of cultures in the middle of Europe between the West the so-called West and the East always having to survive to cope with Wars with a lot of difficult situations Serbia is a Christian Nation and the serbs have defended European Christianity for centuries against enemies and attackers from from where they came from the experience of a lot of Wars one of them
is not far away the serbs have learned I think this is especially true for you Mr President to fight for peace to work for peace to build Bridges and not to take on trenches today a lot of people tell us also Switzerland should decide between the west and the East between the good guys and the bad guys there is just a strong either or and I would say president vuic you are a politician who is trying to live another alternative it's not either or it's as well as it's not East against West probably it's East
and West together because we have just one single planet and I think we all are doomed to cooperate and make the best of it you're keeping this Utopia of understanding High even in times of war and this is why you have my utmost admiration Sometimes you seem to me like an artist on a tight rope up in the Sky not trying to fall down into the abies and a lot of people are dragging on you everybody's trying to push you on one side and the other but somehow you manage to keep the balance and we
wish you to keep this balance for a very long time and the balance is of course also the modus vendi of Switzerland it is a great honor to welcome you here in Zurich to discuss with you to listen to your Zurich speech and after the speech we'll have a conversation and now may I ask you Dear Mr President to come to the podium the floor is yours and our souls are tuned to the receiving mode thank you very much thank you much thank [Applause] you dear Roger Mr Chancellor president odic your excellencies dear friends I'm
honored and privileged to be here and to have an opportunity to say something before you and uh it's very difficult speaking and saying anything after Raja because he's so energetic he's so well focused that you cannot overcome it and uh I'm not the type of guy that is by his his nature optimistic and uh but I'll be 100% sincere with you and will say what I think and uh I'll be very ready to listening to you later on and to learn many things from you we live today in a world where people don't listen to
each other when you have propaganda which always has to appear as a truth either you follow it either you immediately become an adversary or an opponent of those that are empowered always to be right and truthful changes that are happening areast to space in exactly last 300 years full Western dominance based on two [Music] postulates is almost coming to an end one which is only half true and the other which is absolutely true the first half true one that the democracy is a form of a political regime established in the west was the lighthouse that
attracted all others both big and small on their side the other one is that China and Russia had missed the first Industrial Revolution and maintained for a long time in force the fal order that could not bring economic Prosperity quite the contrary it led to huge dynastic conflicts and lagging behind of those Nations the exception that confirmed the rule is the big victory and the exception that confirmed the rule is the big victory and the biggest contribution of the Russian army in the second world war but the Soviet Union and Russia part from the victory
against Nazism could offer to the rest of the world neither higher living standards nor free social thought however in the past 40 years things have been dramatically changing in the first 25 out of those 40 years all indicators and numbers changed that progression imposed by the arithmetic display of growth and in the past 15 years the fastest in the history of mankind just the way it suited geometric progression what is that happened and that inevitably encouraged changes in the world to such extent that in 2024 the world is completely unrecognizable comparing to the world from
2000 democracy is there more democracy and freedom of expression than it used to be the case for years ago in Euro Asia not counting only the traditional Western Partners like South Korea and Japan no there is a change situation in South Korea as well in eastern traditional societies yes there is of course there is and the first mistake of all of us that are geographically coming from the West is that we haven't noticed how those societies changed politically and in every other sense and how much they progressed and political system and regime they presented actually
we have never wanted to accept their progress because only one flag of democracy can fly on the Earth's Hemisphere and it is the Western one nonrecognition of their progress in democracy would be the first mistake of our Western World the second even bigger mistake was the one that we lied to both ourselves and them that we wanted them to accept the same model and supposedly the same values and you know all of us that are on EU path we always hear two words one is values and another two words Merit based whenever you ask them
okay what are the values at the beginning of accession process the main word was market economy it was everybody wanted to reach the level of a real market economy because we used to live in a self-managing socialism period of time but a different types of property not a private ownership was established as a dominant one and we wanted to belong to that type of market economy which was a prerequisite for the real democracy for the new political system we wanted to build but for the better and more efficient economy as well at the end what
happened just few years ago and here in Switzerland I got it as a final news 2015 we started listening from many different circles in the west okay market economy is not anymore the basic value of our societies we should now defend our markets with new ter with protectionism and that flag market economy flag was taken by Chinese and I was coming to Davos for last 11 years and was listening very carefully president cin Ping's words in 2016 if I'm not mistaken and he he exactly took a flag of market economy from The Americans and from
all of us from Europe saying okay we are embracing globalization and market economy and everything went and turned upside down all of a sudden Chinese because they had an eye of a tiger in the recent decades they wanted to change themselves they changed themselves they became very successful in their economic model they accepted all the regulations all the rules of the West but when they started jeopardizing our economic successes we said no it's all about protectionism because we have to remain dominant and we're going to change the rules and now the only discussion that we
have about economies it's not how to boost our growth rates nobody discusses that how are we going to secure better loans for our companies and at the same time not to put in Jeopardy stability of our public finances why our public debt to GDP ratio is around 100% is going to be at the end of this year speaking about Euro Zone in Serbia it's a bit better at least when we speak about this issue it's 46.4 but uh what we're going to do because if next year it's going to be once again 7 growth rate
of Europe or8 or 1.1 whatever we might say about China India many Arab countries United States of America they're going to have either twice either five times or six times bigger growth we cannot follow them anymore but we have no ideas the only idea we all have is what kind of tariffs we going to put against the other guys and now the main discussion is is Trump going to put this tariffs on China on Mexico on uh Canada on Europe or against the all of them and how Europe will overcome all the difficulties with China
because they cannot resist to both the United States and to China and uh how Trump will accept the fact that United States they have a deficit in their trade exchange with Europe of 100 32 billion and he is as a matter of fact which is true very much uh security protector of Europe and what he's going to do and now we have thousands of open questions apart from all these War all these wars that are taking place in our Hemisphere and it's uh very difficult to find Solutions and I'm here it's easy of course to
analyze it having all these datas all these figures like I'm doing today at the end before I start saying a few words about Serbia and don't worry I'm not going to criticize anyone else in our neighborhood would like to act differently comparing to the others from the Western Balkans and I know that at least you and Switzerland are fed up with all of us speaking our stories revealing the truth from the past and everything else I know it and you know it even better than I do uh what I'm what I wanted to say is
that the real issue for us is what we can do in order not to worsen situation in the world we have now this big conflict which seems to be a conflict between Russia and Ukraine which is actually Russia versus West which is as a matter of fact Russia plus its allies including China versus West it's what I heard from angeler Le Chang in Munich 2017 if I'm not mistaken security conference li Chang was referring to the audience and saying Prime Minister of China of that time and he said to everybody and you saw that he
was very sincere very honest he thought what he was saying well you see China was a leading country of the world since 300 years ago and we Chinese we missed that first Industrial Revolution what we need now is just to get at place number one in the world where we used to belong and nothing more than that we are not going to do anything against anyone in the world we don't want you to follow us to succeed us on that road what what we need is just to occupy that place which is a natural position
of China and then I did not expect but Tangela took floor and she said of course in a decent and polite way was saying but why do you think that we would like to see you again and that padestal is a number one country in the world and then she got a big Applause and then she was saying well you cannot buy our company is it Kuka or Kika whatever big robots from for Volkswagen they were making and all the other Automotive companies you you cannot buy it for peanuts that and that well they didn't
buy it for peanuts for 5 billion but they bought it for 10 billion just few weeks after and uh yeah then what else we could have offered apart from protectionist measures in the meantime I believe that uh situation in Ukraine is getting even more out of control control it's not even a big news today today the main news in the world is whether president Yun made a terrible mistake or he did not or what will happen in South Korea in two days and that's it because everybody is exhausted with Russian Ukrainian Clash nobody wants to
hear anything but everybody wants to win the war and whoever I asked so far people from the West they were saying to me Alexander you need to understand that we must not lose this war it's very clear when I asked my some of my Russian friends they said to me you Alexander no we must not lose this war good both sides that are in Clash they must not lose the war which means that that war will last for a very long period period of time and which means that no one is ready for the really
compromising solution and now there are thousands of stories what will happen I'll do something what all the others do you know we in Serbia are accustomed and we are in the habit of knowing everything better than the others doesn't matter if we don't know anything but we know everything better than the others there are in Serbia are 7 million presidents 7 million football coaches I don't believe that in Switzerland is the same but that's how it goes in that's how it goes in my country and if you ask them what is going to happen all
of us we have our own position on that and me too what I believe that might be very dangerous there are two schools now one that is winning within the NATO and United States of America is what they going to do in next six weeks and what I believe they going to do at the end of this week or by the end of next week they going to change their position not only on a tactical but a bit of a strategical level which means that they will try to aim to Target and to harm very
much Russians regarding their Amo storages but not only that uh oil res hes gas storages and everything else if that happens they still believe that Putin will not strike back that Putin will not strike back that he might hit very hard Ukraine but not any of NATO countries that's how I see the situation and that's what I forecast that's what I foresee which you'll be able to see to notice to check it within month month and a half but what I think is that uh Putin won't be very hesitant with stronger strike back we'll see
but when it happens then you'll really believe that it will be a better position for anyone to get the real truth or ceasefire in 40 days or 60 days I don't believe in that I don't believe in that and my proposal in the recent meeting which we had in Budapest that European political Community I was saying in the presence of president zalinski was the only one who was saying that which is not strange uh that I think that we should set a Tru sensation of fire whatever as earlier we stop it well all they pleased
you all will have to sit and to try to attempt to resolving this problem and I saw that president zalinski was not very happy with my openly imposed proposal after two and a half years I spoke to President Putin by telephone and uh I don't believe that he was we just in three sentences discussed Ukrainian issue but uh I notice that he was not craving trying to get that cessation of fire as well which means that we'll have further escalation and uh at the same time waiting for miraculous resolution of a problem that will come
from the White House sorry that I'm saying when once again uh acting like a prophet which I'm not not at all uh that's not going to happen that's just not going to happen and I'm afraid of big disappointments that might come for all of us which means that we'll have further deterioration of situation in the meantime I'm not sure that this peace established between Israel and Hezbollah and the others is longl lasting peace I hope it will be the case but uh I'm not certain about it and at the end I think that we in
Europe as at least Americans will try to do something Russians will do their job ukrainians will do their job but what Europe will do if you ask me I'm certain that Trump after harsh commands against China within six months will conclude a deal with China at the end the only real territory that he will go in political way against is going to be part of European union or European Union itself that's also my personal opinion nothing more than that but our problem in Europe today is and that's why I'm profoundly grateful to Roger because there
are few places where you can freely say what you think I was astonished when I saw that prime minister Orban was VIs visiting Putin I was not able to do so not because it would have been harmful to myself but we would be under terrible pressure we are not a member of EU we are not a member of club and I didn't want to expose my country to even bigger pressures but when I saw all the others that were using hypocritic language against prime minister Orban just because he spoke to someone just because he spoke
to someone and I know and I'm telling you this very openly very publicly that I know at least two European leaders that spoke secretly to Putin they did not inform their public about it I got it from Kremlin as an information and confirm confirmed information but they were able to criticize Orban and he did it very publicly very openly what was the problem if you speak to someone what is the problem if you listen to someone does it mean that you share all the views with someone no it does not but we need to speak
to each other we need to understand each other this is something that we lost in the meantime I'm always you know can I can I recall yourself can I remind you on something that was happening happening even in this country 2 and a half years ago there were because Serbia strongly condemned an incursion of Russian army into the Ukraine in the United Nations o and all the other institutions but we did not impose any sanctions against Russia because we were the only country that didn't do it even in this country in all liberal Medias it
was published that Serbia was getting ready because vuic is Putin's puppet it's not easy to direct someone with 120 kilos believe believe me and uh they were saying they're going to start a new war in the Balkans they're going to attack Bosnia they're going to attack kosova they're going to attack whomever you want and I was saying no people it's not true but I couldn't reach anybody apart from rer that wanted to listen that wanted to hear now my question is for all those Medias because they were pretty much sure that it was going to
happen okay are you going to say at least one small story to Serbian people and to Serbian political leadership because of all these false stories it didn't happen it won't happen and I'll tell you later on why this is totally excluded on the other hand I believe that Europe has to create its own politics in a very strategic way in a very strategic way and I believe that Europe is late on this and I think that many people in Europe they don't understand the war consequences they still deal with us stuff in a way that
we're going to survive this day another day and we'll see what the public audience will say about it what they will comment and how we can tackle it on a short term and that's it it's going to be worse than a hell if this continues on the other hand apart from market economy which was the biggest value of our societies now another one became a political one territorial integrity and un Charter and I'm not going to speak only about Serbia I'll just mention it but what about our sufficient excuse liet very famous German philosopher used
to use it sufficient excuse sufficient reason to attack Iraq because of false allegation that they were possessing nuclear weapons who cares about it today what's going on in Iraq does anybody of us knows what was the reason that the West entered Afghanistan after Soviets left and how it ended who was defeated what was the case in Libya we were going against dictator and what we brought to Libya today and now I'm going to tell you something which you might be interested in they launched an aggression against Serbia in 1999 because of official excuse for that
was humanitarian disaster that was ongoing in Southern Southern Serbian Province they didn't get security Council approval they didn't get any legal approval from the United Nations even from General Assembly they violated un Charter they violated resolution 1244 after the war but before the war they violated all the other regulations now when they start speaking about territorial Integrity we always ask them what about our territorial Integrity because this resolution 1244 is still in effect it hasn't been abolished or dismantled in the in the meantime but it like does not exist who cares and when you come
to our country speaking about territorial Integrity yes we do support we do endorse territorial Integrity of Ukraine and we are going to be more loyal to territorial Integrity of Ukraine than the others because we have a principled position but nobody wanted to hear it nobody wanted to listen to that because everybody was saying well that's a different story and when I I always asked him okay tell me something about the difference in these stories no it's a long story V you should not be backward leaning uh past oriented you should uh be future oriented and
just discuss the future forget what was happening in the past and my comment has always been are you going to say the same story to ukrainians and they were always now I see they're going to say the same story to ukrainians just wait for the proper moment either it's going to be within 6 months or within a year and then you'll see whether that Devil's Advocate from Serbia was right or not and I'll tell you one more thing when they start negotiating with with Putin and I have always I have already gotten that confirmation Putin
will rightly so from his point of view it's against Serbia's interest but it's in his best interest he'll start speaking about Kosovo precedent because he's going to sit with Americans around the table and all the others will be on the table and then he's going to say well what you did with Kosovo we did with donon and zapari zapari zapari doesn't matter whether you take Russian or Ukrainian language and then what is going to be their answer no real answers then they'll have to make another deal but the the only solution is which I think
this is the only thing that I'm offering today is to set up the new rules and the new values that everybody will respect values cannot be changed in two days or in two years or in 10 years those values should remain constant and at the same time changing the rules making it acceptable for everybody in the world and not violating it in the future and then when you make this kind of Foundation then we can start resolving the problems from the past knowing that nothing similar will happen in the future this is the only solution
there are no other Solutions and when I was saying this to Schultz and macron and to Ursula they said to me well Putin will not say this he'll not use that after a month got a call from Emmanuel Alexander how did you know it even Chancellor schz was saying this to me yeah he mentioned it Ula was saying yeah yeah he was speaking about it of course he was speaking about it he's a smart politician he uses what you give to him and you gave him something you gave him an ace which was hidden in
his sleeve and that's good for him it doesn't mean that it's good for us to the contrary but it's good for him what is going to be American response to that not sure I hope that on the other hand we'll have less hypocritic approach towards some other values it's not a big secret that big Western Powers were interfering into elections all over the world and always saying democracy is when we win if we lose then it's not that Democratic as we thought as we want it to be when the others learned lesson including Russians and
the others when they started interfering into their elections that was like a complete Havoc something totally forbidden and something very very strange and then if that's the case just act in the same way and I put a lot of hopes in to Elon Musk and Viv ramas Swami's work as well as in to Kennedy's work and I hope that they will change something on that as well because we need real principles and less hypocrisy on the end just few words about Serbia's position and as I said at the beginning I'm not going to criticize anyone
else in our surrounding as you know we are on our euu path and today I had a important meeting with your business community and you know I I was bragging ourself a lot and one smart guy at the end uh said to me you know it looks like a paradise when you depict it it's not it's not at all we Face thousands of problems we are still poor country our GDP and absolute numbers with 6.7 million people live living there is 82 billion but just 10 years ago it was 32 billion just to see what
kind of a progress we made in the recent years but it's still very small as you know and uh it shows how much we need to work in a more diligent way which is going to be very difficult people want in all our countries all over Europe they want to live better every single year and to work less and I take always my personal example this year I was working a bit less than last year but I'm getting a bigger salary if I didn't get it I would say something against the state and I saw
the Swiss people started laughing when I was saying that but it's true we are all spoiled and conceited we all want just to get out of the blue something that we did not earn if someone is preventing that this is the culprit and uh having in mind the level of digital laziness today that we spend almost 3 hours doing nothing with our cell phones just wasting time I don't know what we're going to do and I'm happy that we got T solar anal from Switzerland to introduce dual vocational system but it's really tragic how difficult
it is because you need to impose it people don't want to accept it and not to mention the other very difficult stories but yes we made an economic progress we were number three or number four speaking about uh level of development in the region of Western Balkans now we are by far number one ahead of everybody the lowest public Dept to GDP ratio speaking about the countries that are members of urostat and the country with the biggest average wages and uh also the most developed we mean Serbia means 50% of overall Western Balkans GDP 55%
of overall Western Balkans export and 62% of overall Western Balkans FDI attraction these are good things still we'll have to do a lot regarding reat rule of law media Freedom many other stuff that is necessary to be delivered to our people you know you Swiss people you had Lind there many centuries ago and uh still we are not that experienced but we know that we should always respect the rule of a pars and that's why I'm profoundly grateful to roer just to conclude this two and a half years we were under big pressure to align
ourselves with everybody and I was always asking our friends in Europe okay if that is so why do you need our government why do you need any governments you can just text us a message or sending an email then that's a decision because I still believe in a sovereign independent countries that can bring Decisions by themselves for the sake and for the benefit for their own people and I think this is an irrefutable irrefutably best best stance and best position of one country I am very much afraid uh that we'll have more and more difficult
situation in Europe just for you to know we have 85,000 people that are working in German companies when they sneeze when they cuff we got immediately pneumonia and with their growth rate it's going to be worse for us within two and three years this year we are number two country speaking about about fastest growth rate in Europe next year we might be even number one country with a level of growth rate but it doesn't mean that it will remain so in two or three or four years and uh this is why we are very much
afraid and uh I just believe that Europe should make some more strategic decisions than it used to be the case and I believe that they will be able to do so and I'm very happy that you were very kind and very patient and that you listen to me and uh I know that unlike Roger I'm not I'm not I'm not Charming person at all and uh yeah it's I cannot laugh anybody but uh at least thank you for giving a chance to say what I think and I'm happy that president doic is here because you
know just for you to hear this word if there were 6% of albanians or 8% of bosniacs in Montenegro if they say we need to get Albanian or Bosnian language as an official language legitimate demand legitimate request would have nothing against it but if serbs would say and there are officially 32% of serbs living Liv in Montenegro if they say we want to have and Serbian language is spoken by 52% of people we want to have Serbian language as an official language come on well don't be backward leaning you know you should change your focus
and I listen to them I'm not that stupid not to understand this attitude but I listen to them and I focus myself on economy to tell you the truth is the same case with Bosnia you know whenever they say something against Republica Sera it's so easily accepted by everybody when people from Republic CSA say well this property issue this assets issue is not resolved in a fair way hey these guys are secessionists although all the others seceded from us but doesn't matter that happened in the past and we should be just future oriented and uh
we are very much future oriented because I'm very much focused on Expo we are an organizers of specialized Expo in 2027 we based everything on Expo and we'll fulfill all a Keys all criterias for the EU full FL membership status and I don't believe that we are going to be a part of EU because they will not accept us till 2030 203 something but uh it's our job to do it it's our job to modernize our country it's our job to democratize democratize our country but uh it's economy that is driving force for for myself
and for our country and I hope that we'll get more Swiss people coming to Serbia and many of serbians that are living here in Switzerland bringing either their knowledge either themselves back to Serbia we would be profoundly grateful to them and uh at the end economy always wins and I believe that you Swiss people know it better than the others in the world dear roer thank you very much for listening to me I was really honored and privileged to have an opportunity to refer to you thank you [Music]
