I don’t know how often I have visited Belgrade, but it has certainly been many times. My first visit – when the country was still governed by President Slobodan Milosevic -- was on behalf of the City of Vienna, where I was active in “cityforeign relations.” The purpose of my visit was to invite representatives from Belgrade to participate in a cooperative project among cities of Southeastern Europe -- from Vienna and Ljubljana to Athens. During this trip, I remember the words my interpreter spoke about the effect of sanctions: “they keep the poor poor, the rich get richer, and the middle class is destroyed.” I still think there is much truth in these words, but -- as in the present case -- I unfortunately do not see an alternative to sanctions.
I later visited Serbia as an EU parliamentarian in the framework of a delegation to Southeastern Europe, of which I was the first vice-president. We primarily met with representatives from Otpor, the student movement against the Milosevic regime, as well as independent journalists. We all had great hopes that there would be imminent and drastic changes. When we later met with the leaders who succeeded Milosevic, we soon became disappointed with their limited willingness for change. This was especially true for Vojislav Kostunica, who was chosen to reconcile the conservative right wing with progressive forces. But increasingly, the hope for a progressive course disappeared and commercial interests and populist tendencies prevailed, especially in the media sector.
The election of Zoran Djindjic as prime minister provided the greatest hope for change. Djindjic was a forward-looking and honest politician, and his subsequent assassination may have resulted from these very qualities. President Boris Tadic was another leader who seemed to promise societal change and a solution to the Kosovo conflict, but he was too timid and had a foreign minister -- Vuk Jeremic -- who did not support such efforts. When Tadic later called early elections, he lost.
My most recent trip to Belgrade was in the framework of the IIP’s Western Balkans Initiative, which aims to provide a platform for the voices of young people from the region regarding domestic developments as well as the relations with the EU. We arrived in a Serbia that is free and theoretically democratic but is largely dominated by a president who learned during an undemocratic period how to control a country and its population: Aleksandar Vucic.
President Vucic - an autocratic ruler
Vucic has been the president of Serbia since 2017, and he previously served as prime minister and minister of defense. We were also reminded repeatedly during our meetings in Belgrade of the fact that Vucic was minister of information under the Milosevic administration. During this period, Vucic introduced restrictive measures against the media and did nothing to protect journalists against attacks. Under his presidency, the number of attacks on journalists has increased once again.
Vucic learned during the Milosevic era how important it is to control the media and how helpful it is to have a firm hand on the state security service. His skillful dismantling of the opposition – on top of its own self-destruction -- is the third element of his strategy for staying in power. Parallel to his strong grip on society and unwillingness to solve the Kosovo issue, Vucic has continued to present himself as a leader who has learned from his early mistakes and officially promotes Serbia’s aspirations to join the EU.
At the same time, Vucic seeks to strengthen ties to Russia and President Vladimir Putin in particular. He also praises China as a great friend of Serbia. For this purpose, he utilizes media sources that he owns or controls. The opposition is either non-existent in the media or is characterized in the worst possible way. Moreover, Vucic and his partners have not restricted themselves to dominating the Serbian media scene but have bought several media companies in neighboring countries. Vucic also maintains good relations with other autocratic rulers in the region, including Viktor Orban in Hungary. The two leaders cooperate closely in Vojvodina, where Vucic’s party is in coalition with the Hungarian party, and the two parties benefit from financial support from Hungary.
It is unsurprising that Serbia’s progressive and social democratic parties are no friends of Vucic. But all the
representatives of the NGO community who we met -- and who were very critical of the opposition or at least how it has acted in the past -- had a devastating evaluation of Serbia’s democratic trajectory. Contrary to the EU Commission report, they do not observe any progress but rather a continued decline of democratic institutions and behavior.
Elections under unequal conditions
Will the elections on April 3 bring change? If you walk through the streets of Belgrade, there is no sign of democratic opposition parties or candidates running for Parliament or for the presidency of Serbia. Predominantly, you see images of Ivica Dacic, the leader of a party that is successor to the party of Milosevic, and Vojislav Seselj, the convicted war criminal (that he can run for a public office is alone a scandal).
Vucic does not find it necessary to appear on billboards since he is ever-present in the media – both public and private. His new slogan that he developed after the war in Ukraine -- “Peace. Stability. Vucic.” -- is broadcasted throughout the country.
One cannot speak of fair elections under these conditions, and any positive result for the opposition would be a near miracle. It is true that Serbia’s opposition has been responsible for many mistakes in the past and widespread corruption in Serbia – as well as an uncritical stance toward Russia -- predate Vucic. However, it was and is Vucic who is responsible for the rapid deterioration of democratic standards and media freedom in the country. In this environment, elections are no great risk.
The impact of the war in Ukraine
With the ongoing war in Ukraine, Vucic has experienced some self-inflicted problems due to his special friendship with Putin. He had to underline the territorial integrity of Ukraine without specifying its limits. Does it include Donetsk and Luhansk and even Crimea? Given his rejection of Kosovar independence on the basis of Serbian territorial integrity, it would be illogical to justify or defend the dismemberment of Ukraine.
Despite his stated support for Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty, Vucic was not ready to criticize Putin and has rejected sanctions against Russia. He has only slowly moved in this direction, first adopting sanctions against former Ukrainian leaders and crooks and later stopping flights of Air Serbia to Russia. However, most observers believe that, after the elections, Vucic will have to follow the EU-wide sanctions, which will not be easy for him given public support for Russia – support that was nurtured by Vucic himself and the media he controls. Some media sources are now gradually softening their anti-Western attitude and trying to present a slightly modified position. Nevertheless, they continue to speak of a “special military operation,” as the Russians call their aggressive occupation, and they refrain from speaking of war.
Serbia and the EU
Many of our interlocutors hope that after the elections -- presidential, parliamentary, and for the city of Belgrade -- the EU will insist on Serbia aligning itself with the EU over Ukraine. But many also hope for a general change in the position of the EU vis-a-vis Vucic and Serbia. On one hand, they expect a clear condemnation of the ongoing authoritarian transformation of the country. Even measures that Vucic accepted and introduced, such as judicial reform, have not been implemented, according to most of our interlocutors.
On the other hand, the EU should take steps towards bringing Serbia -- and the other countries of the Western Balkans -- closer to the EU. In this area, we had an interesting discussion with an NGO that is working on the concept of “staged integration.” This concept would provide for a country’s step-by-step integration by phasing in EU policies in different sectors before membership with voting rights is reached. Even then, these countries would not be granted full veto rights -- at least for a period.
The phasing-in and eventual full membership would still be dependent on reforms completed by the candidate countries, and a backsliding in the reform process could be addressed by moving backward to a earlier stage. Significantly, in this new approach, candidate countries and their leaders would be forced to clearly commit themselves to a future in the EU. The ambivalence expressed by Vucic, who strives to balance between different partners (EU, Russia, China) at the same time, would no longer be possible or would at least be harder for any leader who wants to be taken seriously.
It is not easy for the EU to deal with a Serbia that the EU wants to have as a member and at the same time must criticize for its lack of reforms and its strong economic and ideological ties with Russia. These ties and widespread public sympathy for Russia can be partly explained by the bad experience of Serbia’s population during the time of the NATO bombing. Some of our interlocutors interpret the sympathy for Russia today as a form of revenge on the West for Serbia as well: Russia is doing something to the West that Serbia is not currently capable of.
It will take a long time to overcome these feelings, but it is especially difficult given that Serbia has failed to confront its own history. The glorification of war criminals like Ratko Mladic and the candidature of Vojislav Seselj in the forthcoming elections are signs of this lack of readiness to confront the past with an open-minded and reflective attitude. There is still much work to do -- for Serbia and the EU
Dr. Hannes Swoboda, President of the International Institute for Peace (IP), started his career in urban politics in Vienna and was elected member of the European Parliament in 1996. He was Vice President of the Social Democrat Group until 2012 und then President until 2014. He was particularly engaged in foreign, enlargement, and neighborhood policies. Swoboda is also President of the Vienna Institute for International Economics, the Centre of Architecture, the University for Applied Science - Campus Vienna, and the Sir Peter Ustinov Institute.