After his meeting with the head of the European Union's Office in Serbia, Vincent Degert, the newly-elected Serbian president told the press he was going to invite President Josipovic to his inaugural ceremony and said that he would never do anything which might mar the relations between the two countries and the two nations.

One of the topics of the Nikolic-Degert talks was plans for Nikolic's visit to Brussels after his inauguration. He is expected to be received by the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, and the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton.

Nikolic's recent interview with the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, in which he said that the project of the so-called Greater Serbia was his dream that unfortunately had not been realised, but that he respected Croatian international borders and that Croats have no reason to return to Vukovar as Vukovar was a Serb town, provoked negative reactions in the Croatian public and among Croatian politicians.

In its first reaction, Nikolic's Serb Progressive Party (SNS) which he formally left after winning the presidential election, last Friday refuted the statement about Vukovar, saying it was a vicious lie. After a Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reporter confirmed on Saturday he had Nikolic's statement recorded, SNS official Marko Djuric said on Sunday that the President-Elect wanted to achieve the best possible relations with all countries of the region, with the respect for national interests and resolving the issue of refugees and the restitution of their property and other issues.