INTERVIEW/Ambassador Brankovic: We did a lot for the Romanian communities of Serbia over the past years

Serbia's ambassador in Romania Branko Brankovic in a recent interview to AGERPRES talks about the situation of Romanian communities in Serbia, the latest developments in Ukraine, as well as Belgrade's position on the Kosovo issue amidst Serbia's aspirations to join the European Union. As far as the Romanian communities of Serbia are concerned, Brankovic admits that in the past Belgrade was maybe slow in going forward, but showed that over the past years the authorities have done a lot to this end.

AGERPRES: Your country has recently faced the most serious wave of flooding, a record in Serbia's history. What is the situation now? Could you put a price on damage?
Branko Brankovic: Yes, we had a flood which we have never experienced in our history. Some people are saying that as far as we record weather forecasts, we have not had that for the last 200 years. (...) The damage is really something what the Government has called catastrophic. I will give you some detail, which are not final. As far as we understand as tow-three days before, we have still around 19,000 people without electricity. We still have 31,000 displayed persons. We have around 3,500 km of destroyed infrastructure, the roads — I mean the city roads, the mountain roads and the others — about 30 bridges totally destroyed, and around 50 of them seriously damaged.

AGERPRES: When floods occur in Romania, mass media accuse politicians of not taking prior measures, while politicians argue that you cannot fight against nature. How much of the floods in Serbia was nature's fault and how much the fault of the authrtoyies?
Branko Brankovic: In Serbia, we are not blaming the politicians, we are not blaming anybody, not even God. We are blaming the nature, but the nature...