President Aleksandar Vučić says that he would Serbia agreed to second-class membership in the European Union, without the right of veto. It is only important, he says, that capital, goods and people flow.
Vučić did not have time to tell the people that during one of his powerful "addresses", but first he told a journalist in German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which reveals who he's actually addressing, but more on that later.
First, it's news. Because Serbia, if we remember correctly, long ago officially decided to strive for membership in to the European Union - full-fledged. But we know that the president has no problem coming up with "creative" approaches when in front of cameras and microphones.
The idea itself is not new. According to Brussels or Berlin the idea of a two-class or three-class EU has been floating around for a long time. Sometimes it is called "Multispeed EU", sometimes "Union of Concentric Circles". Non-veto membership is referred to as "trial" or "pending". Or they are simply talking about only economic integration.
Those ideas have never been concretized yet, although they had prominent advocates. Let's say, the German chancellor Friedrich Mertz (otherwise semi-interested and semi-informed about the region) he spoke about this economic integration, putting Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine in the same basket.
What does Vučić want?
Vučić now says - give what you give. He joins in that Eddie Rami, his peer in terms of seniority in power. It must be a trial balloon. And it will be that Vučić tells this to German newspapers, because there you need to feel the pulse.
What could it achieve? In the top of the head, to somehow break through the doors of the EU waiting room. Those doors have not been real for years but have been drawn on the wall. It is valid - we would like to enter the EU, and they would like to receive us.
In the second best case (according to the Serbian government), Vučić sends the message that he is ready for such a big concession, that he is a committed European and the like. He would think of everything except to organize the country according to the EU, Serbian customs of the Constitution and common sense. To, say, lift the paw from the media, the judiciary, to fight the criminal system.
The citizens of Serbia know that he will not and cannot do that, because then he would fall from power, and perhaps lose his freedom. They know the same in Brussels.
The EU does not want a new Orban
In translation, any, even second-class membership in the European Union, is a long shot and is only possible if the attitude prevails that, due to geopolitical currents, there are more benefits than harm for the Balkan states, as they are, to be admitted to the table in Brussels. Without veto power, of course.
Because the European Union is not even close to solving its key problems - which are increasingly urgent at a time of world movements - sluggishness, disunity, barrenness. This can only be done if the decision-making system is reformed so that key decisions do not require consensus, which means that everyone has a veto.
Let's say Viktor Orban. That's why no one in their right mind wants to give the same veto to Vučić or Rama.
Citizens get nothing from that
From the whole geopolitical deliberations in Brussels or matchmaking in Belgrade, the citizens of Serbia have absolutely nothing to do with it. The best they could ever expect from (the road to) the EU is not the free flow of capital and goods, but a somewhat organized state.
They saw long ago the game in which the regime in Belgrade offers various counter-services for silence in Brussels, Berlin, Paris... therefore, if this continues, the "European path" in Serbia will no longer have anyone to support, and until now it was difficult to find a majority for it.
I say, it is unlikely to happen, but for the citizens, some entry into the second echelon of the EU without the rule of law, for the sake of geopolitics and the "free market", would be devastating. Hardly anyone would find solace in the fact that he is now being beaten by the police of an EU member state when he demands free elections.
