Serbia has been waiting since 2012 for the European Union to respond to its request to become a full member of the Union itself. Despite grueling negotiations, this response is late in coming and the root cause of the stalemate has a specific name: Kosovo. Before accepting Belgrade’s request for membership, the Union demands a definitive solution to relations between Serbia and that region that broke away from it after the 1999 conflict, when NATO was mobilized to help the Kosovar Albanians. which in February 2008 proclaimed its independence.
Serbia has never recognized the birth of the Kosovar Republic, just as many other important countries have not recognized it: out of 193 members of the United Nations, only 110 states have formally accepted the birth of the new republic while the rest, including Russia , China, Spain, Greece and Romania – to name but the most important – refuse to recognize the independence of the Albanians of what was once a region of Serbia.
The European Union cannot accept that one of its members, as would be the case with Serbia if its candidacy were accepted, is in fact unable to guarantee control of its borders. In fact, since the end of the war between Kosovo and Serbia there has not been a clear and controlled border line between the two countries. To avoid continuing clashes Pristina and Belgrade have effectively left the border open, closing both eyes on the “smuggling economy” that thrives on both sides of the border.
In this situation, if Serbia became a full member of the European Union, a breach would be created in the borders of the entire Schengen Area, as anyone passing through Kosovo could then move to all the countries of the Union. This is not the only obstacle to Belgrade’s accession to the Union: many European chancelleries look with suspicion at Serbian foreign policy, which since the dissolution of the Yugoslav Federation has maintained a privileged relationship with Russia, refusing to join the program sanctions imposed by Europe against the Kremlin after the annexation of Crimea against Ukraine.
During the Covid 19 pandemic, Serbia even agreed to produce the Russian “Sputnik V” vaccine directly in its laboratories, blatantly snubbing the vaccine offer from Brussels. For the Americans and some important European states, Serbia’s formal entry into the Union could shift the center of gravity of the geopolitics of the Old Continent eastwards by opening, via Belgrade, a privileged channel of dialogue between Moscow and Brussels.
This possibility, however, is not viewed with disfavour by Germany except in the intentions of the President of the CDU, Armin Laschet , next candidate for the succession to Angela Merkel .at the head of the Federal Chancellery, he recently declared that he was in favor of a foreign policy that “develops in multiple directions”, warning Western partners of the danger deriving from “the interruption of dialogue with Russia and China”. In this regard, Laschet publicly stated that “foreign policy must always be centered on the search for ways of interacting, including cooperation with countries that have different social models from ours, such as Russia, China and the nations of the Arab world”. Today we do not know if Laschet will take over the leadership of the most powerful country in the Union in the autumn, but what is certain is that the eventual formal entry of Serbia into the ranks of the Union could force Europe to review some of its positions in politics. foreign
At the moment, however, Belgrade’s entry into Europe still appears to be in the future, precisely because of the stalled Kosovar Serbian negotiations.
In 2013, Pristina and Belgrade signed the so-called “Brussels Pact”, an agreement optimistically considered by European diplomacy capable of rapidly bringing about a normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo, with a view to mutual political and diplomatic recognition. An integral part of the agreement was, on the one hand, the commitment of the Pristina authorities to grant a high degree of administrative autonomy to the Kosovar municipalities inhabited by a Serb majority and, on the other hand, the collaboration on the part of the Serbs in the search for remains of the thousands of Kosovar Albanians allegedly eliminated by Milosevic’s troops during the repression that preceded the war of ’99.
Neither of the two commitments has so far been respected and, during the meeting held in Brussels on 21 July last between Serbian President Alexander Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, big words and mutual accusations would have flown over the failure to implement the “Pact” to the point that the head of European foreign policy, Josep Borrell, publicly asked the two sides to “close the chapter of a painful past through a legally binding agreement on normalization mutual relations, with a view to achieving a European future for its citizens ”. This future appears at least hazy when we consider that Serbia refuses to recognize the legal value of degrees and diplomas awarded even to members of the Kosovo Serb minority by the Kosovar academic authorities.
At the moment, however, both contenders are securing support and alliances in Europe and overseas. Serbia is welcomed by the current president of the Union, the Slovenian Janez Jansa, who is a supporter of his entry because “this would definitively sanction the dissolution of the Yugoslav Federation”. Even the overwhelming majority of European right-wing parties, starting from the French “Rassemblement National” to the Hungarian “Fydesz”, approve Belgrade’s application for membership and openly court the Serbian minorities living in their respective countries, while the Biden administration, after the years of American disengagement from the Balkans since the times of Bush, Obama and Trump, he would have decided to bring the region back into the list of priority foreign policy commitments, entrusting the “Serbia Dossier” to Undersecretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, Matthew Palmer , a long-time and highly experienced diplomat.
To support the Serbian bid for membership in Europe, Belgrade has also deployed official lobbyists. Last June, Natasha Dragojilovic Ciric ‘s “ND Consulting” lobbying company officially registered in the so-called “transparency register” in Brussels to promote support for Belgrade’s candidacy. The ND is financed by a group of international donors and avails itself of the advice of Igor Bandovic, former researcher of the American Gallup and head of the “Belgrade Center for Security Policy”, of the lawyer Katarina Golubovic of the “Committee of Jurists for Human Rights ”And of Jovana Spremo, former consultant of OSCE.
These are the legal troops deployed from Belgrade to Brussels to support its request for formal integration in Europe, but in the meantime, Serbia does not neglect its “eastern” alliances. Earlier this month, the head of the SVR, the Russian Secret Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, paid an official visit to Belgrade, just weeks after the conclusion of a joint military exercise between Russian special forces (the ” Spetznaz “) and Serbian special forces.
In the Serbian capital Naryshkin not only met his Serbian counterpart Bratislav Gasic, head of the “Bezbednosno Informativna Agencija” the small but powerful Serbian secret service, but was also received by the President of the Republic Alexander Vucic in order to make public the proximity of Serbia and Russia.
The timing of the visit coincides with the resumption of talks in Brussels on Serbia’s accession to the Union and can clearly be considered as instrumental to the exercise of a subtle diplomatic pressure tending to convince the Union of the possibility that, in case of refusal , Belgrade decides to definitively turn its back on the West, to ally itself with an East which is evidently more willing to treat the Serbs with the dignity and attention that a proud and tenacious people deems to deserve.
News that confirms that Serbia is ready to turn its back on the West, should Europe continue to postpone the decision on its entry into the Union: in recent days, China has signed a partnership agreement with Belgrade in the field of research pharmaceuticals, an agreement that makes Serbia one of the largest, current, commercial partners of Beijing on the European continent.
