The issue of Serbia's accession to the European Union does not find support from the population of the republic, President Aleksandar Vucic said at a press conference following a meeting of the Brdo-Brioni process summit in Slovenia.

“If the EU accession referendum was held today, the citizens of Serbia would say no,” the head of state stressed.

According to him, such sentiments are caused by many reasons, including the fact that in the EU “there is always talk about the territorial integrity of Ukraine”, while in the case of Serbia this principle was violated.

“People in Serbia cannot accept this hypocrisy,” Vučić was quoted as saying by TASS.

At the same time, the president noted that the republic would not abandon the European path and would continue the process of joining the European Union.

In pursuit of precedent

Western countries, led by the United States and the European Union, continue to actively lobby for the recognition of the independence of the so-called Republic of Kosovo.

In particular, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Gabriel Escobar, in an interview with the N1 channel at the end of August, urged Serbs to forget that Pristina is part of Serbia and “move to the narrative that Kosovo and Serbia are Europe.”

In Serbia, the current efforts of the West are considered mercenary, believing that in this way they want to consolidate the precedent and use it in confrontation with Russia on the Ukrainian issue.

As Alexander Vucic said on September 10, commenting on the negotiations with the EU Special Representative for the Western Balkans Miroslav Lajcak, adviser to the German Chancellor Jens Plötner and adviser to the French President Emmanuel Bon, the leading EU countries insist on this, demanding to resolve the current situation as soon as possible.

According to him, Western states need Kosovo to use it as a legal precedent in the confrontation with Russia over the Ukrainian issue.

“We have again become collateral damage due to the conflict between the major powers and their unscrupulous behavior in the past,” lamented Vucic.

Today, more than 90 out of 193 UN member countries recognize Kosovo's independence.

At the same time, their number changes regularly, as some states withdraw their recognition.

Among those who initially did not support the independence of this territory were Russia, China, India, as well as a number of EU member countries (Spain, Cyprus, Romania, Slovakia and Greece).

  • NATO mission post in Kosovo

  • AFP

  • © SASA DJORDJEVIC

Side selection

Serbia is under pressure from the West not only on the Kosovo issue.

They are also trying to impose a certain paradigm of relations with Russia on the Republic.

Thus, the leading EU countries, with the support of the United States, insist that Serbia choose a side in the current situation around the Russian Federation.

“As I was told, Putin has raised a curtain and now everyone must demonstrate which side of this curtain they want to stay on,” Alexander Vučić explained.

According to him, Serbia is offered to take either the side where the economy "disappears and does not exist", or the "side of success", by which the West understands itself.

In June 2022, the European Parliament directly called on Serbia to join the anti-Russian decisions of the European Union, expressing regret that the republic has not yet done so.

From the point of view of MEPs, this indicates "a lack of progress and even regression" on issues of fundamental importance for EU accession.

In turn, in Serbia, they argue their position by the fact that Moscow is a primordial ally of Belgrade.

“Serbia will not come into conflict with Russia — a centuries-old, and often its only ally… Serbia will pursue an independent policy as long as Alexander Vucic is at the head,” said the head of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Alexander Vulin, at the end of July.

Vucic himself said on August 30 that he did not intend to change his position on non-alignment with anti-Russian sanctions.

According to him, the policy chosen by Belgrade "has shown itself to be smart, despite all the difficulties."

In particular, on September 9, representatives of Moscow and Belgrade noted the growth of trade between the countries.

“The trade turnover between Serbia and Russia in 2021 amounted to $2.8 billion, which is 13% more than in 2020.

The growth trend continues, from January to July 2022, the trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $2.4 billion, which represents an increase of 56.94% compared to last year," Nenad Popovich, co-chairman of the Russian-Serbian intergovernmental committee, told TASS.

In addition, Serbia continues to buy gas from Russia at "the best price in Europe," Dusan Bajatović, director of the state-owned company Serbiyagaz, told TV Prva.

Thanks to this, the republic has almost completely provided gas reserves for the upcoming heating season, he noted.  

  • Serbs with flags

  • AP

  • © Darko Vojinovic

Own policy

Experts note that the trend towards a decrease in the popularity of the prospect of joining the EU is generally characteristic of the population of many candidate countries.

“For the Serbs, this is further complicated by two circumstances.

First, over the past 20 years, they have almost unilaterally agreed to the so-called national compromise.

We are talking about the degree of their guilt in the civil wars on the territory of the former Yugoslavia.

Second: difficult negotiations on Kosovo.

All this creates a feeling of constant unilateral concessions, ”explained Ekaterina Entina, professor at the Higher School of Economics, Head of the Black Sea-Mediterranean Studies Department at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with RT.

At the same time, if previous years were characterized by systemic monetary injections from the European Union, then after the first global financial and economic crisis, this systematic approach from Brussels was lost, which further complicated the attitude of the Serbian people to the European integration process, the analyst recalled.

She also noted the fairness of the opinion of the Serbs that the West is behaving hypocritically in a number of issues.

“Now relations in the European part of the world have moved out of legal contexts into political ones, and absolutely everything is possible in political contexts.

Although, of course, from the point of view of law, this is a policy of double standards,” Entina added.

In turn, MGIMO professor Elena Ponomareva noted that another factor in the decline in the popularity of the European Union among the Serbs is its frantic policy against Russia, a country that is traditionally considered the most reliable and loyal ally of the republic.

“Russia, for example, does not recognize the independence of Kosovo, it always emphasizes that on this issue it will take the position that Belgrade chooses, and this cannot but impress the Serbian population,” she explained in a conversation with RT.

However, the attempts of the Serbian leadership to maintain some semblance of neutrality, building relations with countries that consider themselves adversaries, will force it to continue to "swing on the geopolitical swing," the expert noted.

At the same time, Ekaterina Entina noted that over the past ten years, Belgrade has managed to constructively play on the growing contradictions between the great powers and on the built structure of international relations.

“Belgrade has developed active economic relations with China and Turkey, with a number of Arab countries, maintains a constant dialogue with the Russian Federation, which creates the illusion for the Serbian people of a balanced foreign policy of Serbia and the possibility of existing outside the European integration process.

However, I would not speculate now on the subject of EU enlargement, because it is not known what the world will be like in a year, two, five years.

Perhaps this issue will not be on the agenda at all in this form, ”the analyst concluded.