President Zoran Milanovic said on Friday in a commentary on Belgrade's decision to buy new Rafale fighter jets that Serbia is twice as underdeveloped as Croatia and is procuring weapons to be prepared for "a week-long fictitious war".

During a two-day visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to Serbia, Serbia and France signed an agreement on Thursday on the procurement of twelve new Rafale fighter jets at a price of 2.7 billion euros.

“(President Aleksandar) Vucic can use anything as grist for his mill, but it’s their business. It is not my or our business,” Milanovic said in Pozega, where he attended an oath-taking ceremony for applicants for voluntary military service.

The Croatian head of state said that Serbia should be more developed than, for example, Romania, given its potential in the 1990s and the level of industrialisation and education, as well as its industrial tradition. Currently, Serbia is twice as underdeveloped as Croatia and Romania, he added.

“Croatia is also being armed for a war of less than a week”

Serbia is also acquiring French air defence systems and first-class Chinese and Russian tactical air defence weapons. We have none of this. So there is a government in Serbia that is being armed, but it is actually being armed for a week of a fictitious war that will never break out, Milanovic said.

“And Croatia is also being armed for a war of less than a week,” he added.

At the end of 2021, Croatia bought 12 used Rafale jets from France at a price of 1.13 billion euros. The first six jets arrived in Croatia in April this year and the remaining six will be delivered in 2025.