Can Serbia remain neutral in a polarized world?

On the sidelines of an economic forum in Vladivostok on September 4, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin made it clear to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Belgrade is a strategic partner and an “ally of Russia”.

Putin responded warmly, greeting President Aleksandar Vucic and then inviting his Serbian counterpart to attend the upcoming BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan.

This show of Slavic solidarity, however, did not sit well with the European Union. The next day, EU foreign affairs spokesman Peter Stano said that “maintaining or even increasing ties with Russia during its illegal aggression against the Ukrainian people is not compatible with EU values”.

Vulin’s visit to Russia was perhaps even harder for the EU to swallow as there have been recent signs that Serbia is moving closer to the bloc. In late August, Serbia signed an agreement with France to replace its aging MiGs with Rafale jets. And in July, Serbia signed an agreement with the EU to develop a lithium mining project to produce batteries for electric cars.

The mixed messages, however, are as usual for Serbia under Vucic, who in his 12 years in power has followed a multi-vector diplomatic course, balancing Serbia’s relations with the West, Russia and China.

Those hoping that Serbia’s recent affairs were a sign of its wholehearted embrace of the West would have been disappointed.

Ivan Krastev, who chairs the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia and is a permanent fellow at the Vienna Institute of Human Sciences, told RFE/RL that the agreement with France was not a case of Serbia “simply taking sides once for always. “

This was made clear when Vucic spoke at a press conference with the French president on August 29, he said: “I know that Emmanuel (Macron) would like me to introduce sanctions against Russia. But we didn’t, and we’re not ashamed. of our decision.”

On the surface, the recent agreements with Germany and France may seem like a kind of “European moment” for Serbia, said Vessela Tcherneva, deputy director of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“But what makes me a little skeptical,” she told RFE/RL, “is that we know that beyond the pure trade relationship and the pure security dimension of it, there’s also the dimension of democracy and pro-European forces. in Serbia. Where does that leave them?” she asked.

Spreading the wealth

Vucic does not have the perspective or pedigree of a natural, Westernizing democrat. In the late 1990s, he served as Serbian Minister of Information during the last years of Slobodan Milosevic’s regime. He was a high-ranking official in the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, although he distanced himself from the party in 2008.

While Milosevic was an international pariah, known as the “butcher of the Balkans” for his role in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, Vucic was largely cooperative on the world stage, seen by the EU and Western powers as indispensable and instrumental to stability in the Balkans.

A third international way has always been embedded in the DNA of Yugoslavia and Serbia. Serbian officials still like to say that Serbia is the “East of the West” and the “West of the East.” And Vucic’s balancing approach has strong precedent in the politics of longtime Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, who was one of the founding leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement, an alliance of states that has not formally joined either the United States or United States. Soviet union.

Serbia, however, is not as strong as Yugoslavia once was — and that means Vucic’s policy requires more flexibility and constant change. Vucic is adept at distributing the wealth among Serbia’s international partners, ensuring that he gives something to all stakeholders, but most importantly, he gives everything to no one.

In this regard, the EU is Serbia’s largest investor, with significant investments in infrastructure, including 96 million euros ($106 million) in 2024 for road and rail modernization, in addition to projects supporting Serbia’s transition to green energy. However, Russia controls Serbia’s national oil refinery and China, through its Zijin mining group, owns 63 percent of RTB Bor, the country’s largest mining operation.

Vucic also opened Serbia to the Arab world. The United Arab Emirates has invested millions of dollars in the sprawling Belgrade Waterfront urban development, although the project has been marred by allegations of corruption.

Not wanting to leave out the United States, in May Serbia struck a deal with Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, to redevelop the former Yugoslav Defense Ministry building in central Belgrade. . The ministry’s blackened shell is iconic in the Serbian capital, destroyed in the US-led NATO bombing campaign in 1999.

With the US presidential election in November, many Balkan watchers saw the Kushner deal as Serbia prepares for Trump’s possible return to the White House. However, in a recent interview with Britain’s Financial Times, Vucic insisted the deal was just a “commercial venture”.

As always, Vucic is hedging his bets. “My friend (Hungarian Prime Minister) Viktor (Orban), is 100% on Trump’s side,” he told the Financial Times. “My friends in Brussels, I’m 100 percent on Biden’s side. I’m not. I’m on the Serbian side, waiting for the results.”

The Serbian president has taken a similar approach to Ukraine, trying to diversify his risks. While refusing to accept Western sanctions against Russia, Serbia has also supplied shells to Ukraine through third parties, worth 800 million euros ($888 million) from 2022, or a third of the total European supply.

Push and pull

Serbia’s relationship with Russia, though complex and steeped in history, follows a similar Vucic playbook. The two predominantly Slavic nations share a historical and spiritual affinity, and Serbia relies on Russia diplomatically, for example, to block the UN admission of Kosovo, a former Serbian province that declared independence in 2008.

Vucic tried to keep Russia at bay. Just before German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s July 19 visit to Belgrade to sign the lithium deal, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksander Grushko visited Vucic in the Serbian capital.

An insider claimed the meeting was “arranged”, according to the UK’s Financial Times. “Grushko sat down and began reading a list of 23 complaints, including the Kremlin’s anger at Belgrade’s decision to supply ammunition to Ukraine,” the newspaper’s source said. “When Grushko got halfway through the list, Vucic stood up, announced that the meeting was over and left.”

He was similarly cool in his response to the invitation to join the BRICS summit in Russia in October, saying Serbia would have important guests during that time and would decide at a later date.

Speaking at the Globsec forum in Prague on August 31, Vucic dismissed the idea that Belgrade was a Kremlin Trojan horse, saying he had not had personal contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin for 2 1/2 years.

While Vucic relies heavily on Russia, said Kurt Volker, former US ambassador to NATO and envoy to Ukraine, he “still tries to maintain some leeway and independence.”

“Stabilitocracy”

A criticism often leveled at Brussels is that the EU is prepared to put its larger interests in maintaining geopolitical and ethnic balance in the volatile Balkans ahead of concerns about fundamental freedoms. Some critics have called this the EU’s “stabilocracy approach”.

While they were initially critical of Serbia’s last parliamentary elections in December 2023, which were marred by numerous irregularities, these concerns were soon swept under the carpet with the EU and France business deals.

“If Macron gets a sale, he won’t push too hard on other issues,” Volker told RFE/RL.

For years, international watchdogs and rights groups have warned about Serbia’s poor record on press freedom, the rule of law and rampant corruption. The latest Freedom House report gave Serbia a political rights score of 18 out of a possible 40, placing it in the “partly free” category and noting the country’s downward trend toward authoritarianism.

While Serbian authorities present an image of the country as a regional economic powerhouse with one of the highest growth rates in Europe, Serbia continues to face numerous obstacles.

According to a July assessment by the US International Trade Administration, “these challenges include weak rule of law; political interference in the economy; a slow-moving judicial system subject to political pressure; real and perceived problems of corruption; an overly complex process and sometimes non-transparent bureaucracy (and) an opaque bidding process”.

And in many ways, Vucic was a stronger leader than Milosevic, who died in 2006 in prison in The Hague, where he was on trial for war crimes. Domestically, the Serbian president has succeeded where Milosevic failed, for example by exerting control over parts of Belgrade that had been traditional strongholds for the opposition.

“Under Vucic, we saw the strengthening of Serbian nationalism. We saw efforts to undermine Montenegro. We saw efforts to support (Bosnian Serb leader) Milorad Dodik and undermine Bosnia,” Volker said.

With 70 percent of Serbia’s trade with the European Union, many in the EU question whether Vucic is truly committed to the bloc’s principles, or whether Serbia’s ambition to join is motivated solely by economic needs.

Catch-All Policy

Vucic conducts his domestic and international politics almost like a permanent election campaign: keeping his opponents — and even partners — on guard, unsure of his next move.

Calibrated contradictions abound. Although Vucic was the one who struck the deal with Western countries to mine more lithium, he also accused Western security services of orchestrating the popular protests against the mines and of plotting a “color revolution” against him.

“Vucic has a universal policy,” Ivan Vejvoda, a fellow at the Vienna Institute of Human Sciences, told the Financial Times in June.

“At one point you have (Chinese President) Xi (Jinping) visiting. Then a few days later, (Olena) Zelenska (first lady of Ukraine) and Dmytro Kuleba (former foreign minister of Ukraine) come (to visit). Then he goes to the Russian Cultural Center and gives a revisionist speech. And then, two days later, he’s with the EU, talking about growth plans,” Vejvoda said.

The risk Vucic is taking is that while his policy may appear pragmatic, he may ultimately be perceived by Serbia’s international partners as untrustworthy.

“Sitting on the fence is not easy,” said Krastev, a fellow at the Center for Liberal Strategies. “In a way, you become too vulnerable.”

Volker, on the other hand, doesn’t think Vucic has an end point in mind.

“For someone in his position, it’s like riding a bike,” he said. “You have to keep it going forever, juggle all the balls and then keep going. And that’s the goal in itself, just to be strong and keep going.”

Via RFE/RL

More top reads from Oilprice.com