Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić announced this Saturday that he intends to ask the United States next week to lift sanctions on one of the country’s most important companies, the Serbian Oil Industry Company (NIS). NIS is being instigated because its majority stake is in the hands of Russia’s Gazprom.
In a statement carried by Serbia’s public radio and television station RTS, Vučić acknowledged that “we need to find a solution to NIS as soon as possible.” “Next week is the most important for NIS and I think the refineries can hold out until the 20th (November) or the next day, but we have to find a solution by then,” he warned.
Sanctions exemptions for the company ended last month, meaning it returns to the list of North American sanctions against majority-Russian companies, amounting to a “secondary risk.” These sanctions are aimed, among other things, at stopping the Ukraine war from being financed through funds from Russian energy companies.
In this context, Vučić hopes to capitalize on the inertia created by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s successful visit to the White House this Friday and the acquisition of a “full and unrestricted” exemption from Russian energy sanctions from US President Donald Trump.
“I hope it’s news. On Monday or Tuesday, together with the Russians and others that the Russian side will decide, we will send a letter to the American government. We hope to receive a response within one, two, three months,” the Serbian president said, before assuring that the Serbian government was “already starting” to resolve the company’s management issues.
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