No more riding two horses

The beginning of the campaign for new local elections in Serbia is marked by stories from foreign policy. The government bombards the public daily with complaints about the pressure it is under and, paradoxically, on days when no new factories are opened, as in some earlier campaigns, there is talk of the need for general mobilization because the external circumstances are not good. Although the public has already Googled stories about how we are threatened, how they hate us and how we have no friends while they want to take Kosovo from us, the fact is that things are changing and that it is happening rapidly because of the war in Eastern Europe.

Where is Serbia going, why is the EU insufficiently present in the region, what will we do with the "Serbian world" and the Open Balkans, and what is the role of America - we discuss these and other topics with Ivan Vujacic, professor of economics, diplomat who served as ambassador for seven years of Serbia in Washington. He is one of the veterans of the Serbian political scene, a man who remembers Serbia's 30-something years of transition and transformation from a socialist to a country that would like to be democratic.

"WEATHER" In the last few weeks, several things have happened that are bad for Serbia: Kosovo was admitted to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and is on its way to joining the Council of Europe, the Russian initiative to discuss the NATO bombing in 1999 in the UN Security Council failed, and Dacic traveled to New York in vain. How should we understand these events and Serbia's reaction to them?

IVAN VUJACIC: Events related to Kosovo and Metohija were predictable, especially after the Ohrid Agreement, despite the fact that Kosovo and Metohija does not recognize five EU members. There was no reason to make a big drama about it in Serbia because it was clear that it would happen. Insisting on a session in the UN was wrong because it could also be assumed that it would not take place. It only contributed to the sharpening of the rhetoric towards the West, which is only in the interest of the Russian Federation. Moscow links the bombing in 1999 with the end of international order and law, and they wanted to talk about other things through that discussion - about the moves Russia took in Georgia, about the annexation of Crimea and about this war that it has been waging for the last two years against Ukraine.

We see that Serbia is returning to the rhetoric that we believed had been overcome; they tell us that Serbia has no allies. Is that really true??

I don't even know how we would have allies since we are not in any alliance. We pursue a policy of neutrality, which is why we don't have allies or mentors. The closest to an alliance in Europe is France, but Serbia still follows the "four pillars" policy. Attempts are being made to replace China with the Russian Federation, the arrival of Xi Jinping is announced, there are large investments and loans, this is where the other side of eastern politics is shown.

Earlier, Vučić's foreign policy was praised for keeping his eggs in several baskets. Is this possible since the beginning of the war in Ukraine?? Can Serbia still say? let's go to the EU, but we have excellent relations with Russia?

That is no longer possible. One should know when a policy is over and reorient oneself. I love an anecdote that I once heard from a high-ranking Russian diplomat: one day the embassy was instructed in the morning to defend Kosovo and Metohija as part of Serbia, and in the afternoon that South Ossetia and Abkhazia could secede from Georgia on the basis of Kosovo. And he told me jokingly: If you can't ride two horses at the same time, you have nothing to look for in the circus. Serbia is trying to ride those two horses, but if we still want to go towards the EU, that type of balancing will no longer be possible. Neither when it comes to Russia, nor when it comes to China, because Europe is also starting to look at China and its expansion differently. And I have to add – Serbia left the European path a long time ago and this can be seen in many ways.

Is this the moment when Serbia formally says so and stops EU integration?

No one should say it so publicly. We live in a situation and politics that I call pretend and extend (we are pretending and procrastinating). That's what Serbia is doing, and that's what the EU is doing, which has neglected this area, which, in my opinion, is a huge mistake. At the same time, there is no political will in Serbia to really move towards the EU, and even worse, such a public opinion is being created that there are now more opponents of that path than was the case ten years ago. It is difficult to lead a foreign policy if you do not have support for it in public opinion, especially if you still spoil the image of those countries in the public of Serbia through articles in tabloids and in other ways.

In the last two years, Serbia moved between two points of view: one was "it's best to hide under a rock so no one sees us", and the other, in relation to the introduction of sanctions against Russia, let's put it off as long as possible. Where are we two years later??

Hiding under a rock is not possible, I said that back then. The treatment of the Russian Federation is tolerated, but in the meantime we have gained numerous negative points with other countries, which will be an obstacle to further integration. The Baltic states, Poland, and those who feel threatened by Russia are angry. There is an understanding regarding energy dependence. But exaggerated statements against the West, direct support for Russia and pushing of an anti-Western narrative, as well as gestures such as football matches, congratulations after the elections - these are all things that are noted and worsen the Serbian position.

Does Serbia have a foreign policy at all, or does this talk from the outside only serve for calculations on the internal level?

We have a foreign policy that leads us to stand still. We have been stagnating in reforms since 2015 and when you look at the grades in the annual reports, you see that there is no progress. What the West was hoping for, with great internal support for Vučić, should have been used precisely for a turnaround in foreign policy. To complete that turnaround, you need to have a lot of internal support. For example, Djindjic did not understand this when he ran into proposals about Kosovo, and he did not have enough support in the country. Serbia missed that chance. Now we stand in limbo and do not know what will happen next. We can assume that the EU integration will stop completely, there will be problems with the money that was separated from the development program... The EU parliament requested that the allocation of that money be tied to the introduction of sanctions against Russia. There are other things that do us no good.

photo: marija janković

The government keeps talking.: We are under terrible pressure., they tell us that terrible things will happen and that it is all coming from the West. How do you understand such statements and announcements?? Are we really under such pressures??

I don't have any special "inside" information. We all know that there was a big panic several times, that button was pressed, but nothing happened. The government has lost credibility when it talks about it. On the other hand, when it comes to pressures, nothing and no one obligates us. It is up to us to clarify whether we want to be in the EU or not. If we want to - what do we do about it; if we don't want to, let's say it out loud. It is clear to everyone what is required in the field of integration, as well as what is happening after the Ohrid Agreement. The most absurd thing about that plan is that everyone has their own interpretation: Borelj, Escobar, Vučić, and Kurti.

Does diplomacy provide space for the point of view we heard the other day we did not accept the agreement, but we enforce what we agree with?

Ambivalence is sometimes deliberately created in some agreements to facilitate communication with the public. But that is not the case here: here it is clear what is expected from both sides and it is fascinating how both Kurti and Vučić avoid implementing what they have committed to.

Speaking of Kosovo and Metohija: we have a guided dialogue, which has intensified in the last two years, but there is no solution that was expected. How did you understand that process and do you see any progress?

The first thing that happened was that the dialogue went sloppily, that the change of the Brussels agreement dragged on. In that agreement, Serbia gave almost everything, and Kosovo did not do the main thing, the ZSO was not formed, and my objection to the authorities is that they did not put it in the foreground. In the meantime, something happened that significantly affects this issue: first, Trump appeared in America, which Thaci and Vučić used to try to make an agreement unrelated to the Brussels agreement, on the exchange of territories. They didn't have approval for that. John Bolton then told both of them to come with some paper, so that they could talk, and they came out with a proposal for the division of Kosovo. Maybe some EU countries were ready to accept it, but Germany and the countries of the region did not support it, so it failed. After that, we returned, with mediation, to a dialogue based on the Brussels Agreement. Lajcak was extremely unsuccessful. According to my knowledge, the American side demanded from the EU that, in the light of the war in the east, the issue in Kosovo be ended, in Europe's backyard, that the area be pacified, and that they would support it from another plan through influencing the Albanians in Kosovo. That, we see, did not end well and America was very unsuccessful. Kurti was deposed once, he came back stronger, now he believes he is stronger and is pushing to spite the EU and the USA. They seem to have lost the lever of influence in Kosovo that they had as mentors of Kosovo's independence.

photo: marija janković

Opet, here they tell us that everything that works, Kurti works under the auspices of the West., and Vučić shouts that everyone lied to him and that he no longer trusts anyone.

What he is saying is very ugly, but it also speaks to his abilities: if Vučić believed everything they told him, and everyone lied to him, the question is - is he capable of leading that process if he can't understand anything in time . I don't believe that someone lied to him, because such words are not used in diplomacy. The fact is that America did not do what it should have done, they failed to control the Albanian side, which was its role. Also, their goal here was to suppress Russian influence and they completely failed because it is stronger than ever. At one time, they delegated the entire space to Angela Merkel through the Berlin process. They basically ignored him and stuck to another plan. Here, Americans are sometimes believed to be all-powerful, and they are simply not, as has been shown both here and in the Middle East.

Is the advantage of the Russian side that it is there all the time?, present for centuries?

I wouldn't agree with that. If we look at it - since 1914, we have had relatively bad relations with the USSR, read Russia, for about 80 years. We looked at Moscow as a distant, dark place with which we did not want to have much to do with. Yugoslav diplomacy kept the USSR and the Warsaw Pact at a distance. Those things changed after the 1999 bombings, the emergence of Putin and the declaration of Kosovo's independence. Russians have been present in modern times for 16 years. During that time, the story of Russia has become part of the everyday narrative that does not correspond to historical facts. But, that inflation contributed to their enormous influence, which was especially evident after the sale of NIS.

In that context, what are Serbia's possibilities to "tear off" from Russian influence? The sentence is often quoted as saying that "you cannot take both Kosovo and Russia from the Serbs"? Are Vučić's hands tied??

I'm not sure about that. Kosovo will get some institutional form that will verify the existing situation. The main question for me is the fate of the Serbs in Kosovo. Diplomacy rarely draws new borders, it is done after major wars when the situation on the ground is verified. Russia, on the other hand, distanced itself from Europe, and from us as well - it is enough to see the map. Their influence is not possible except through energy and some kind of soft power.

We said that Serbia is not moving towards the EU, but the EU in Serbia talks and sees only this government. Why is that so??

The EU has created a problem for itself through the concept of stabilocracy, which it has advocated for years. She did not have the strength to deal with these problems. Until the financial crisis in 2008, the EU was on the rise, when it received all new members, except for Croatia, which joined in 2013. After that, the time of crisis for the EU came - they had the euro crisis, which was not resolved, the migrant crisis, which was also not resolved as should be, they had the first Ukrainian crisis, which, above all, was the downfall of European diplomacy, especially French and German, they had Brexit...

The EU does not understand itself as a geopolitical entity, which is its key problem. Americans see it much more than Europeans, who even now do not understand it. It is a club of the rich looking to save their wallets and possibly continue their economic prosperity, which is now threatened by the lack of cheap energy and by Putin himself who has minimized Europe by refusing to talk to Macron and Scholz. He sent them home before the invasion, he said he would only talk to Americans. Even in the case of the first Ukrainian crisis in 2014, the EU made a series of bad moves. My position is that there are no innocents in this conflict and that all parties are responsible, but that there is no justification for what Putin did.

The EU is incompetent., can't orient himself...

Putin oriented them and now we have new members of the NATO pact. The EU has big problems, it is entering into a conflict with China, it has problems at the borders, the strengthening of the right... And they produced all of them themselves with the austerity policy forced by Angela Merkel. The EU has stagnated after 2008 and cannot start.

This gives all the right to those here who say that the path to the EU is pointless and that a new one should be created with the EU, trade agreement and avoid the inclusion of Serbia in the Union?

The EU has been trying to change its approach lately, after years of ignoring the region. They were busy with their crises and economic problems, plus the pandemic. That change is reflected in the Growth Plan, to include the region and strengthen it through sectors, using a step-by-step method. It is inconvenient for the EU that if the main clusters are still tied to the rule of law, then the question is whether it will be able to stick to that plan, bearing in mind the state of the democracies of the countries in the Western Balkans.

Is the EU attractive to us now only because there is no other option??

It has always been attractive for two reasons, which will remain so for the foreseeable future: firstly, it is an organized space in many ways, which you can see with the naked eye when you cross the border, and secondly, its members are welfare states, which means that there is no better places on the planet when we see what people there have and get. Everything you don't have in American-style capitalism, you have in the EU. Essentially, many countries would like to be like the EU, that is, EU member states. Also, it is a model for pacification - the one that led to two world wars, is now, if we look at the EU space, an oasis of peace.

On the other hand, Belgrade leads a contradictory policy in the region: while on one side he advocates the Open Balkans, on the other, it divides it by borders "of the Serbian world". Why is there such an approach?

I already mentioned it: riding two horses in the circus, but that space is also narrowing and will not be able to last much longer. The Americans supported the open Balkans when they believed that something should be given to the region, to connect it, and that it could be implemented quickly. However, that concept has a limited reach and now, as far as we can see, it has been reduced to a labor market that will have almost no effect. The Berlin process is more complex, more complicated, and it is precisely because of this story about the "Serbian world" that some countries in the region are skeptical.

photo: marija janković

Does Belgrade have the possibility to be some kind of regional power?, to be dominant and important in this area?

Regional powers, if we talk about it, are Iran, Turkey, Brazil... Serbia cannot be a regional power. It can be a significant regional factor. In essence, the policy should be reversed: the fact that there are Serbs in BiH, Montenegro, and Kosovo should contribute to the pacification of conflicts, not their production. Serbia has its own importance and could play a serious role if the policy was integrative.

You were Serbia's ambassador to the USA for seven years, and that in the period between two major crises, those after 11. September 2001. and the economic crisis of 2008. years. If we put things into perspective, in the last 25 years, do we stand better or worse with the Americans today??

The answer is simple. The Americans have the Bush Sr. doctrine - that Europe should be united, peaceful and democratic. They see Europe as a geopolitical environment, unlike Europeans, and support EU integration from the second plan. The US cannot push countries into the EU and not treat Europe as a colony, as is sometimes said here; on the contrary, they are looking to encourage the EU, which has been a constant of that policy since the fall of the Berlin Wall. And we normalized relations, established some connections that we didn't have before, and those relations remained like that, as they should, even after my stay. And that's important - whatever happens with Kosovo, that things don't go back to the period when we didn't have normal relations and when we were in confrontation.

There are voices in Serbia. some come from the government, some from the non-governmental sector who say that only now is Serbia working properly in the USA, creates a network of contacts and influence, lobbyist, because there was nothing before them. Is it possible that Serbia has no one to turn to in Washington and that it is only now moving towards that??

No, that's not true. What happened to us had nothing to do with us. Namely, when we overthrew Milosevic, September 11th happened and that good moment, the attention focused on Serbia could not be used to the end. The fall of Milosevic in 2000 was the second most important news of that year in America.

But then we could not improve relations even more, to help us in the transformation of the state and society, because their attention was then occupied by something else and bigger. And as for the lobby: people talk by heart and don't know much about it. There, on the spot, I saw that the Albanian lobby is actually weak, and here it was talked about differently. The only two countries that have a real and strong lobby are Israel and Armenia. They manage to make the administration work. By the way, 95 percent of lobbying in Washington is related to economic matters in America itself.

What is this, in those relations, what do we have now? Current Ambassador Hill does not appear to be "brought" what it was believed to bring, given that he came as the choice of Joe Biden himself?

America and Serbia have normal relations and that is good. We have support for joining the EU. Hill has been in several places in the meantime, it is unlikely that he could know anything more compared to the period when he was here before. He came with two tasks: to sort out the Kosovo and Metohija and to minimize Russian influence, and he was unsuccessful in both. The USA has shown that it is not interested in our opportunities, that it is not interested in democracy, it was almost openly stated, which could have been a shock to some, but it is in line with the idea that this is the job of the Europeans. I expect that here, as on the global level, they will start a policy of suppressing Chinese influence, and they will be unsuccessful in the short term, just like when it comes to Russian influence, which gives them a negative rating when it comes to acting in Serbia.

How did you understand the story about the General Staff? Conducting diplomacy through business or there is something that the public does not see and does not understand?

The whole story is exaggerated. There is uncertainty all over the world about Trump because he is tearing down some old policies and alliances. It doesn't seem to me that anything will change, whether Trump comes or Biden stays. People here have a hard time accepting the fact that we are not very important. We are for ourselves, that's good, but we are not for them. We were here while the war was going on, in the wrong way, and it's better not to be important to them like that.