photo: ap photoFOREIGN POLICY TEST - WHO DOESN'T BELONG HERE: A. Vučić with S. Jinping,...
Serbia's relations with the European Union are an exercise in hypocrisy, and cooperation with Russia cooled even before the Nice crisis. Of the four geostrategic chairs, two remain, and the president of Serbia thinks that with some Houdini-esque diplomacy, he will succeed in simultaneously relying on the two biggest rivals of the modern world, the USA and China.
Can Aleksandar Vučić combine the incompatible. That is, at the same time that he gets the support of Donald Trump and Xi Jinping? This does not bother the Chinese because he is interested in profit and Serbia as a platform for entering the EU market, but the American makes it clear that he will not tolerate the spread of malignant influences from the East on the terrain of the Western Balkans, which he considers his backyard. Belgrade must never learn that small Serbia is not a big non-aligned Yugoslavia and that it is not in a position to sway between the great powers. It is time for bold decisions, but there are none, just like long-term foreign policy strategies. Serbian diplomacy is frantically searching for allies from the outside at a time when Vučić is losing support on the domestic scene, and he pretends not to see that they expect him to make up his mind.
"Every country is sovereign in its choice, and so is Serbia. And it is the Serbs who will have to make a choice," Kremlin spokesman Dimitriy Peskov said a month ago.
photo: ap photo…V. Putin,…
Nominally, upon coming to power, the progressives accepted a strategic orientation towards the European Union. Vučić pocketed a key lever of foreign policy, but it turns out to be a maneuver, if not sabotage. All key parameters show that Serbia is moving away from the Union, which, after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, put enlargement back on the agenda. Reforms that would create a democratic state with the rule of law, independent judiciary and institutions, free media and other European values simply do not exist.
Belgrade has not opened a single cluster for five years. By March 31, only six of the planned 34 steps from the Reform Agenda were fulfilled, states the intersectoral working group of the National Convention on the EU. Phrases like Kosovo and the EU may sound seductive in the clouds of heavenly justice, but on earth it is an unsustainable policy, the biggest brake on the creation of broader alliances.
Photo: AP photo…U. von der Leyen…
Serbia wants to join the Union, repeats the president of Serbia as he launches his tabloids on an anti-European campaign and fires barrages against "Serb-haters" MEPs and all who criticize him in a completely undiplomatic way. Vučić is not squeamish about money from the EU, but he does not want Serbia in the Union because he has an undisguised aversion to the values of liberal democracy, which is in line with his radical worldview.
It is useless to adopt a package of "European laws" when it is known that in this country the laws are not worth the paper they are written on. In this continuity of deception, the anti-European rhetoric does not let up. The government continues to fail to fulfill all that Brussels expects.
Everything about that is clear. Nothing is accidental. Insincere promises about reforms are part of a designed policy of undermining democratic reforms, and it is a wonder that Brussels has so much patience with the black sheep of the Western Balkans. When Europeans began to deal with the growth of authoritarianism and the stifling of freedoms, when Commissioner Marta Kos announced that tolerance was decreasing due to the decline in democracy and the rule of law, Vućić tried to find an ideologically closer ally in the West.
POLITICS ON THE HOCKEY
It started even before Trump's severing of eight decades of ties with European allies. On the eve of the 2016 American elections, Vučić threw all his cards at the "Trampa Serb". The claro-nationalists in Belgrade - confirming the dominance of irrationality - secretly even hoped that the American might recognize Kosovo's independence.
Vučić did not waver even when he ended 2020 in the Oval Office by signing the Washington Agreement on the normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo, the biggest concrete result of which was that Israel recognized the independence of the "southern Serbian province". And since he somehow survived four years of Joe Biden, Vucic welcomed Trump's second term with great enthusiasm. He sided with the American against the European leaders.
Once again, the foreign policy assessments were wrong because the American administration immediately raised the issue of Russian ownership of Nisa. In the first wave of global tariffs, Serbia was issued a quota of 35 percent in April - the highest of all Western Balkan countries. With warnings to drop the ball with the Chinese, the tariffs took effect last August.
In May 2025, a crash occurred during Vučić's attempt to raid, with the help of Serbian truckers in the USA, a meeting of Republicans at Trump's private residence in Florida. Ingloriously, he was escorted to the airport with an escort that was anything but honorable, and in Belgrade he immediately went to the VMAs to hide the traces of his gaffe. Trump's vanity is still more powerful than Vučić's.
During the last session of the UN General Assembly, he experienced a complete personal debacle because he was not on the list of 145 statesmen with whom Trump ceremonially shook hands. Everything was further aggravated when the General Staff deal planned by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner failed.
As an authoritarian, conservative populist, sovereignist and demagogue, Vučić had every chance to be Trump's favorite character like Viktor Orbán, but he squandered his chances. Now he judged that the time had come to try to settle the damages.
Vučić recently clearly revealed what he thinks about the Trump administration and Europe in an author's text for the American Fox News, a newspaper close to the US president.
While others scoff at Trump's vision, Serbia understands it. He mastered "unrelenting enthusiasm" for his leadership, Vučić wrote, ignoring that part of Serbia that has the worst opinion of Trump and sees the future of democratic Serbia in the EU.
Vučić did not fail to describe the Europeans in a pejorative context, mentioning the "stale corridors of the past", which is a replica of the words of the Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush, with which he responded to Franco-German criticism of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Vučić addressed the "worrying surge of contempt" that spread from Brussels to Berlin and called into question the idea of "strategic autonomy" of Europe promoted by Emmanuel Macron. How he thinks he still calls the French president a friend, only Vučić knows.
In an inspired marketing effort to recommend and approve a "soulmate", Vučić sees a leader "who values national sovereignty over impersonal (EU) bureaucracy, who prioritizes economic reality over ideological fantasy..." He said that Serbia's economy is just waiting for a "true partnership".
THE ISRAELI SCHEME AND THE CHINESE MONA LISA SMILE
photo: fonet / instagram of the president of Serbia...
While he still hopes to open a strategic dialogue with the USA, Vučić realized that he could improve relations with Trump through his closest ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He entrusted Minister Marko Đurić to use his Jewish connections and knowledge of the Hebrew language.
At a time when Israel was killing 72.000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, the president of Serbia increased the export of ammunition as a crowning proof of loyalty to his autocratic like-minded fellow from the Middle East - risking that one day Serbia will be accused of being an accomplice in genocide. I guess his Israeli advisers told him that this was the best way to thank Netanyahu for recognizing Kosovo.
Vučić invited Trump to Belgrade, promising an unprecedented welcome. Preparations are underway and were opened with Vučić's welcome upon his return from China. It is this visit that opens up a plot that deserves a serious cost-benefit analysis. Serbia profited economically, but it remains to be seen what the damage will be in relations with the USA.
So far, China has invested 18 billion dollars in Serbia, mostly in infrastructure and heavy industry, and now it is announced that cooperation will jump to a higher level, from cutting-edge technology to artificial intelligence to robotics. 23 contracts were signed. Serbia receives nearly one billion dollars in Chinese investments. This is a success at a time when direct foreign investments are declining and is a kind of consolation for Vučić that there is no money from the European Growth Plan.
It's all nice. The president of the National Assembly is right when she says that Vučić's visit to China will be discussed soon, but it is a dangerous misconception of hers to claim that "the positive effects of that visit will be seen in the years ahead."
Did those responsible for creating Serbian foreign policy think that the exaggerated glorification of "steel friendship" with Beijing would cause negative reactions in the West, especially in Washington? Trump does not allow anyone to ignore his request to reduce ties with China and Russia.
Local diplomacy stubbornly raises its own price and sticks to the worn-out platitude about the geographical position that allows "Serbia to be a bridge between East and West, but also a bridge between different parts of Europe", as the president of the initiative Pupin recently said.
It turns out that the topography is enough for East and West to rush towards Serbia, if not to connect them to each other. Geography is a strategic advantage, but it is not enough. The payment of such a position comes exclusively through diplomacy, and it - in the absence of vision and personnel - was created in such a way that today Serbia does not have a single reliable ally.
Serbian Diplomacy Day was recently celebrated in Belgrade. What amount of arrogance without cover should one have to claim, as Minister Đurić does, that Serbia has contributed more to the security of Europe than many countries in the region.
Thanks to Vučić, Belgrade's foreign policy is isolated because it is in a clinch with all its neighbors. Destabilizing factor. The fiasco of relations with the countries of the Western Balkans has radical roots. Today, Serbia acts as a predatory hegemon who wants to pay everyone around him the bills from the time of the "Serb-hater" Broz and Yugoslavia as a prison for the Serbian people.
Instead of taking care of its minority in the surrounding countries in accordance with international standards, progressive Belgrade pushes its compatriots against the world they live in and fuels their dreams that one day they will all live in Greater Serbia. What kind of "adaptability" is the minister talking about, engrossed in the foreign policy opinions of his presidential idol. Euphoric applause to the tune of "Aco Srbina" suits the minister much better than praise for the policy that "builds partnerships around the world".
"Through active diplomacy, open dialogue and responsible politics, we continue to build bridges of cooperation and improve the position of our country on the international scene," says Đurić smugly from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
What successes are we talking about? Blockade of the European road? Russia deliberately pressuring Serbia around Nis? Clinging to Trump without results? A calculated endorsement of the Chinese leader with the mysterious smile of the Mona Lisa? Disputes in the region?
ISSUING THE USE PERMIT FOR FOUR CHAIRS
Every foreign policy originates from the internal, so how can we expect the success of the diplomacy of a country that is dangerously polarized, that is in the most serious social, moral and political crisis, where corruption and crime flourish and there is no production?
The four diplomatic chairs have wobbled enough that they should be left to the garbage collectors, but this government either doesn't understand how the changed world works, or they simply don't care.
Diplomacy, not fighters or drones, is the most reliable instrument for a small country like Serbia to realize its interests in the shadow of the great world powers. Provided that they are precisely defined and rationally marketed.
International influence depends on many things, one of the key ones being that foreign countries believe they are dealing with smart, well-informed people who know their business. Does anyone in the upper echelons of Vučić's government fit that description? No, as far as I can see.
Belgrade squandered the loans it received with bombastic promises, declarations of commitment or historic friendships. The previous foreign policy of Serbia experienced a collapse. A new strategy of diplomacy is necessary, which would know how to represent the interests of a democratic and free Serbia and choose the most reliable allies on that basis.
In a country where a lot of things have been turned upside down during the last decade, a change of government would mean finding completely new solutions, above all a return to Europe, which has found the strength to resist Trump's aggressiveness and is arming itself to counter threats from Russia.
The diplomacy that Vučić is conducting unconstitutionally has found itself on the rocks despite all his efforts to distort reality. A general overhaul is necessary. You can fool some of the people all of the time, but never all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time, goes the American proverb that suggests that the progressive regime, and its foreign policy, is running out of license.
How to meet the President of the USA
photo: ap photo…and D. Trump
Aleksandar Vučić launched an offensive to flatter Donald Trump, all in the hope that he will be able to return to the Oval Office or to give the American president a reception in Belgrade that would be attended by at least 100.000 people.
In a short period of time, the President of Serbia organized interviews for two American media: Fox News television, which is a megaphone of Trump's politics, and the conservative website Breitbart News, in which he praises the head of the White House as a rational pragmatist and admires his nationalism, sovereignty, traditionalist conservatism and preservation of Christian values.
With this, Vučić is trying to improve his personal rating by using Serbia as a shield. He declares that Trump does not have support of such "astronomical proportions" anywhere in the world, including in some American federal states, as in Serbia.
Vučić hopes to use a marketing trick to overshadow the master of the reality show, who was certainly told that those in Serbia who are pro-European, and there are not a few of them, do not approve of his policy of dictation, force and flirting with Vladimir Putin. Criticizing the Europeans, Vučić takes the side of the American, who openly humiliates the Western allies with whom his predecessors built partnership relations for eight decades.
The fact that Trump "noticed" the interview with Breitbart News and shared it on his social network is interpreted as a "good geopolitical signal", which the local pro-regime media greeted with bombastic headlines: Vučić's interview echoed around the world - Croats cried foul.
Perhaps this is a hint of a possible thaw, as well as the fact that the new US ambassador to Belgrade has finally been appointed, but the question is what the "steel friend", Chinese President Xi Jinping, has to say about Vučić's outbursts of passion towards Trump.
There is no doubt that Vučić would like Trump to reciprocate the support he is losing among the domestic public ahead of the autumn elections. He just forgets that the US president recently broke all diplomatic conventions by openly siding with Viktor Orbán, but he failed to save his favorite Hungarian autocrat from a convincing defeat.
