24/7 Space News
AEROSPACE
Fighter jet deal at centre of Macron's Serbia trip
Fighter jet deal at centre of Macron's Serbia trip
By Mina PEJAKOVIC and Francesco FONTEMAGGI
Belgrade (AFP) Aug 29, 2024

France's President Emmanuel Macron arrived Thursday in Serbia where the two countries hope to sign a deal worth billions of euros for Paris to supply fighter jets to the Balkan nation.

The Rafale fighter jet deal is looming large over the French leader's two-day visit, after Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic told AFP that he hoped to seal the agreement this week.

The deal to purchase the French Rafale jets would be one of several agreements inked during the visit, according to Vucic.

"There are thousands of things that we'll have to discuss tomorrow. There are many memorandums of understanding and many contracts that we're going to sign tomorrow," Vucic said in an interview Wednesday.

"I believe that we'll finish everything successfully regarding our military-technical cooperation, which means that Serbia might become a member of (the) Rafale Club, which is a huge, huge contract."

A source with the French presidency said "intense discussions" were ongoing and hoped a deal could be reached during Macron's visit.

Macron arrived in Belgrade late Thursday afternoon, where he was greeted with a hug by Vucic and a traditional honour guard.

Vucic told a Serbian state broadcaster late Wednesday that financing for the fighter jet agreement was no longer an issue, while adding that some unspecified "guarantees" still needed to be ironed out.

France has been strengthening its economic ties with Belgrade in recent years, with trade between the two countries tripling in the past 12 years, according to Serbia's finance ministry.

French company Vinci has been overseeing a years-long renovation of Belgrade's Nikola Tesla airport, and French groups are set to build the capital's first metro station and a state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plant.

Belgrade-based analyst Vuk Vuksanovic said that Vucic likely saw the Rafale deal as crucial for ensuring France's support in the future.

The president "believes that by purchasing these Rafales, which are an extremely expensive product of the French military and industry, he will buy President Macron's favour and political protection," Vuksanovic, a senior researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, told AFP.

- EU lithium deal -

If signed, the agreement would mark the latest in a string of moves by Serbia to curry favour with Europe.

In July, the European Union and Serbia signed a deal to develop the country's supply of lithium -- seen as a crucial building block to achieve Europe's transition to a green economy.

The Serbian government reinstated the licences for a controversial lithium mine this summer after revoking in 2022 the permits granted to Rio Tinto following a string of demonstrations over environmental concerns.

Despite the mass protests, Vucic has vowed to remain firm in his support of the project and said the country willingly chose to sign a deal with the EU, despite having potential offers from outside the bloc.

Vucic has also acknowledged that Serbia had sold hundreds of millions of euros' worth of ammunition to Western countries that has likely been shipped to Ukraine as Kyiv fights off invading Russia troops.

The sales come even as Serbia remains an outlier in Europe after refusing to join sanctions against Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The Balkan country has been reliant for years on support from the Kremlin and Beijing to prevent the United Nations from recognising Kosovo as an independent state.

Serbia has been a candidate to join the European Union since 2012, but its prospects are seen as bleak without a normalisation of relations with Kosovo, where it fought a war against ethnic Albanian insurgents in the late 1990s.

In a letter published by the Serbian press on Thursday morning, Macron said Serbia "fully belongs" in the EU, while acknowledging many in the country had grown frustrated with the pace of the accession process.

Related Links
Aerospace News at SpaceMart.com

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters
Tweet

RELATED CONTENT
The following news reports may link to other Space Media Network websites.
AEROSPACE
Flights resume after outage paralyses Dutch airport, services
The Hague (AFP) Aug 28, 2024
The first flights left Eindhoven airport in the Netherlands late Wednesday after a computer outage grounded planes for hours and hit government services, with authorities saying it was pinning the cause. Planes were grounded for hours at the southeastern regional airport which normally takes passengers to 30 international destinations. Earlier passengers were taken to other airports by bus amid chaotic scenes, the ANP national news agency reported. "The first plane of today has just departed ... read more

AEROSPACE
Blue Origin successfully completes 8th manned New Shepard space tourism flight

Relationships with Space Colonists

Blue Origin's NS-26 launch set for August 29 with six crew members

Lessons from Amazon and FedEx can inform satellite and spacecraft management

AEROSPACE
Air Force awards Outpost development contract for a scalable earth return vehicle

FAA grounds SpaceX Falcon 9 after first-stage booster incident

China Achieves 12th Successful Sea-Based Satellite Launch

SpaceX cleared to fly Falcon 9 rocket after landing mishap

AEROSPACE
Study identifies key materials for shielding astronauts from Mars radiation

The means for mapping Martian meteorites

Western researchers help identify origins of Martian meteorites

Rocket Lab Prepares Twin Satellites for NASA Mars Mission Launch

AEROSPACE
Shenzhou-18 Crew Tests Fire Alarms and Conducts Medical Procedures in Space

Astronauts on Tiangong Space Station Complete Fire Safety Drill

Shenzhou XVIII Crew Conducts Emergency Drill on Tiangong Space Station

Beijing Unveils 'Rocket Street' to Boost Commercial Space Sector

AEROSPACE
SpaceSight Tool by Scout Space Integrated into Saber Astronautics' Space Marketplace

Kenneth Possenriede Joins Rocket Lab Board of Directors

Sateliot Advances Towards Commercialization Following Launch of Four New Satellites

Apex Unveils GEO Aries Satellite Bus for Geostationary Missions

AEROSPACE
Salsa Satellite's reentry to be observed live from the sky

Cluster concludes with controlled reentry over South Pacific

Beyond Gravity joins MDA AURORATM supply chain with constellation computers

How students learn to fly NASA's IXPE spacecraft

AEROSPACE
SETI launches low-frequency search for extraterrestrial technology in distant galaxies

Locked in a glacier, viruses adapted to survive extreme weather

Citizen scientists confirm new warm Jovian-class exoplanet

The evolution of the Trappist-1 planetary system

AEROSPACE
Juice trajectory reset with historic Lunar-Earth flyby

NASA's Juno Mission Maps Jupiter's Radiation Using Danish Technology

Juice captures striking image of Moon during flyby

Ariel's Carbon Dioxide Indicates Potential Subsurface Ocean on Uranus' Moon

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.