Ursula von der Leyen has met with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić on numerous occasions.
Some of those meetings were brief, others more extended, often discussing the status and future of Serbia.
However, none of those previous meetings involved a deeper conversation about Serbia–EU bilateral relations than the one Vučić claimed took place on Monday in Seville, Spain.
Vučić’s statement was widely circulated in Serbian media despite there being no confirmation from Brussels.
A journalist from a neighboring country to Serbia directly questioned EU representatives on Tuesday, asking whether they could confirm that Vučić and von der Leyen spoke at length, as the Serbian president had claimed.
A spokesperson for the European Commission outright denied such claims, stating that the President of the European Commission exchanged only a few words with Vučić, just as she did with many other leaders in the hallway of the Seville venue — where the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development was held.
Despite this, Serbian media had reported that Vučić claimed to have had his longest-ever discussion with von der Leyen, covering Serbia’s European path, the economy, and the shared challenges faced by the EU and Serbia.
