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Serbia: Mass protests are destabilising President Aleksandar Vucic’s “à la carte” foreign policy. The EU should seize the moment to support democratic change and regional stability. (ecfr.eu)

submitted 1 day ago by Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org to c/europe@feddit.org

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This is an opinionated article by Engjellushe Morina, Senior Policy Fellow, and Angelica Vascotto, pan-European Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

This winter has seen Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic skating on dangerously thin ice. Mass student-led anticorruption protests have led to the resignation of the prime minister, Milos Vucevic, as well as several other members of his government. Last week, the president hinted that the turmoil could lead to a snap parliamentary election come spring.

But public anger and Vucic’s collapsing government are far from his only problems. Even before the protests, the president’s longstanding “à la carte” approach to foreign policy of hedging Serbia between the West and Russia (with a side order of China) seemed to be in trouble. Both the European Union and Russia have been pressing Belgrade to choose a side. Now, Vucic has found himself with very little international sympathy for his domestic woes—and very little room for manoeuvre.

This gives Europeans a key opportunity to help steer events towards stability and democratic progress while minimising the risk of regional spillover. To prevent prolonged instability and bring Serbia back on track, the EU should support civil society, address regional tensions, and reinforce Serbia’s European trajectory.

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[–] bungalowtill@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 4 hours ago

No, I don’t think this is predetermined.

The article describes the situation very well. Serbia is a country trapped between the contemporary rivalling power blocks that want it to make up its mind once and for all and choose one of them (not sure if that applies to China, too). Vucic thought he could avoid joining a bloc and do politics “a la carte”. Which I’d say is a derogatory term, 3rd world countries from the 20th century would agree.

I think the situation is very, very similar to the situation in Ukraine in 2013 as well as the situation in Georgia. Unfortunately here nobody sees the EU as a power competent enough to act according to its interests, but hey, I disagree. And I think it has very strong interests to incorporate Serbia. The think tank that is the European Council on Foreign Affairs, obviously agrees.

Because of its projected values (of which European citizens feel less every day) the EU has a pretty good standing among young people, students, urban people. These are the people on the streets. As they were in Ukraine, as they are in Georgia. In 2013 they almost brought down the government in Ukraine, which really was elected before, but didn’t want to sign the accession treaty to the EU for what I think were pretty good reasons. But the students didn’t bring down the government alone. Whatever happened at the Maidan, in the end Russia and the EU lost the power struggle there, the US set the stage. The country was fortified against any Russian attempts, well, we know it wasn’t enough.

This think tank now suggests similar methods: Encourage the demonstrators (and let’s not forget: threaten their lives by doing so), deploy more NATO in the neighbouring countries, enable a smooth transition. Whatever that means. (USAID btw knows exactly was this means and has its own Office of Transition Initiatives)

These are very dangerous times for the people of said states. I hope they don’t get crushed by the escalating conflicts between the power blocs as the people in Ukraine are.