“I’m obsessed with Kosovo,” Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told the Financial Times daily, adding that everything he has done to date depends on a solution to the problem of Kosovo.

“Without resolving that problem, everything I have achieved so far won’t be sustainable. The first crisis will kill us,” he said.

The FT said that European Union leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, see the Serbian President as the best bet to bring Serbia into the European mainstream.The hope is that the possibility of membership by the year 2025 will induce reform which means meeting stiff conditions on strengthening democratic institutions and tackling corruption as well as resolving the Kosovo problem.

Vucic rejected comparisons with ousted Ukranian president Viktor Yanukovich and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban who were thought to have conformed to EU rules and standards before turning against them. The FT says some people suspect Vucic is doing the same thing and that the EU will accommodate him in the interests of regional security.

Vucic also rejected the possibility of becoming “a fifth column for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin in Europe”, saying that he always clearly told Putin that “Serbia remains on its EU path”.

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