In October 2021 we wrote on these pages about the Belgrade Conference on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries, with 105 States and nine international organizations present. It was the only analysis dedicated to the event in the local media, distracted by the concomitant meeting of the G20 under the Italian presidency, divided halfway between old pandemic and future themes of economic recovery, climate change and energy transition.
Part of the disinterest in the Belgrade event lay in the fact that the non-aligned countries, after decades of centrality in the role of buffer between the Atlantic Pact and the Warsaw Pact, with the end of bipolarism had become empty boxes, relegated to irrelevance.
The October conference demonstrates that it aspires to be much more than the weary celebration of a fringe organization that has outlived itself. The organizational effort for an event in attendance (while the Roman G20 was almost all remotely) and the energies lavished personally by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic revealed the plan to restore Serbian foreign policy to the former glory of the Yugoslav period. Belgrade aimed at relaunching the Movement beyond its historical neutralism, to make it an alternative multilateral basis for critical demands and demands addressed primarily to the western side. It is no coincidence that the Russian Foreign Minister Sergej Lavrovhe had flown to Serbia, blatantly absent from the Roman G20, after the Russian opposition to bring there the discussion on the crisis in Afghanistan, following the withdrawal of the United States.
Although (also) in Serbia the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict took most by surprise, the October conference, six months later, today takes on a more precise meaning, in particular when linked to the Serbian decision to vote on the resolution of the United Nations condemning the Russian attack on Ukraine but without adhering to the harsh Western sanctions against Moscow. It is a compromise position which, however, in the polarized war climate, has counted Belgrade among the very few European countries left alongside Moscow. It says a lot about the context in which it matured and the possible consequences on the inevitable global reset of world international relations, which is already underway.
The (unsurprisingly) choice not to adhere to the sanctions arises from the intersection between some traditional aspects and other contingent ones, linked to the round of electoral consultations (presidential, parliamentary and administrative) that are held today (Sunday, April 3, ed) in Serbia , with the polls in agreement in predicting a clear affirmation of the outgoing president.
Quick in intercepting-directing popular sentiment (as during the surreal story of Novak Djokovicat the last Australian Open), Vucic was able to sign the age-old political and socio-cultural link between Serbia and Russia. It re-emerged with arrogance at the end of the Yugoslav and Soviet experience – federal structures that mediated the direct relationship between the two countries – and consolidated over the years thanks to a continuum of close collaborations in the most disparate fields, culminating in the recent Russian aid to Serbia during the different phases of Covid-19 (moreover, in the face of the initial absence of aid from the European Union and the United States).
The bond is strengthened by a common aversion of the two countries to NATO, whose massive bombings suffered by Belgrade only two decades ago left a popular resentment in the streets in Serbia, which local politics follows and is careful not to contradict, especially in pre-election period.
In the meantime, the Serbian choice not to vote on the sanctions, precisely because it was isolated, went far beyond the internal political return and produced an immediate series of economic benefits, beyond all expectations (if there were any). From transport to financial exchanges, one month of conflict in Ukraine was enough to accredit Serbia as a bridge between the West and Moscow, with an impressive number of Russian natural and legal persons to consider a re-location of the center of interest in the Balkans. From the soaring real estate prices to the Bank of China’s decision to multiply the staff in the Belgrade branch, various indicators indicate that this trend of benefits will be strengthened, with the return to a new iron curtain. Now taken for granted even by the most indefatigable optimists.
The point is that for some time Belgrade (mind you, even with the approval of Moscow) has pursued a foreign policy of privileged relations with Russia (and China) but at the same time working for an entry into the European Union, which – although not behind the corner – is not an unattainable chimera as in the Turkish case. Since the war crisis in Ukraine has nullified relations between Brussels and Moscow and strengthened the (not always easy) relationship between the European Union and NATO, after today’s elections the main issue for Belgrade becomes the unsustainability of this double oven policy.
To have already posed the problem and Brussels (for Moscow, on the other hand, Belgrade in the European Union would give more strategic advantages than problems) with explicit and pressing requests to Serbia to adhere to the sanctions against Russia, under penalty of an indefinite postponement of its process of accession to the Union.
Vucic has so far been able to play on various levels in view of the important internal electoral appointment (Serbian politics, like Italian politics, prefer tactics over strategy). For the future, given the certain benefits that derive from it, it is likely that he will do everything to institutionalize the current non-sanctioning policy towards Moscow, but try to take more time with Brussels. And here a possible play on the bank with the multilateral dimension of the Non-Aligned Movement will certainly be very useful.
