BELGRADE, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- European Union (EU) has double standards when denying similarities between the referendum held on Sunday in Catalonia, Spain and the unilateral declaration of independence brought by Serbia's southern province of Kosovo in 2008, said Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic on Tuesday.
Dacic's statement to RTS, the public broadcaster, came as a reaction after Monday's statement of the European Commission's spokesman Margaritis Schinas, who said that the cases of Kosovo and Catalonia are not comparable, because the first took place in "a very specific context," and because Spain is an EU member state.
Accusing the EU of taking double standards, Dacic continued that Serbia fully supports the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Spain and interprets both cases of Catalonia and Kosovo as "unilateral acts that break international law."
"Pandora's box was opened (in 1999 during Northern Atlantic Alliance Treaty bombing of Yugoslavia). The example of Kosovo justified a unilateral act, and made countries dependent on the affection of Great Powers. This is not international right, but the policy of force," Dacic told RTS.
"Kosovo cannot be an isolated and a specific case... What has been done to Serbia was against the international right," he stressed, adding that Serbia warned the international community that supporting independent Kosovo might fuel similar separatist tendencies in Europe.
Schinas's statement on behalf of the European Commission provoked President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic to call for an urgent meeting with the government and security services on Monday, where it was decided that Ana Brnabic, the country's prime minister, will take the letter containing complaints of the Serbian government to Brussels and include it among topics to be discussed with European officials during her previously agreed visit from Oct. 10 to 11.
Vucic said on Monday at the Palace of Serbia, referring to the Catalonian referendum, that the "bear has now knocked upon the doors of the EU," and that it was an act of hypocrisy to legalize the secession of Kosovo, which most of the EU member countries recognized as a country, but at the same time to declare the referendum in Catalonia illegal.
