2023-12-27 12:00:06
Far from the battlefields of Ukraine, another front in Russia’s war is unfolding in the Balkans, where Moscow is trying to exploit nationalist tensions against the region’s aspiration to join the European Union (EU). The spokesperson for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova, has just compared the demonstrations in Serbia, which denounce the alleged electoral fraud during the December 17 vote, to those in Maidan Square, in Kiev, in 2014, which resulted in the coming to power in Ukraine of pro-Western leaders.
Also read the decryption: Article reserved for our subscribers The excesses of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic tolerated by the Europeans
Since the proclamation of the results of these early legislative elections, hundreds of demonstrators have defied the police every day to protest against the irregularities noted. While the official results give victory, with 46.72% of the votes, to the Serbian Progressive Party, the nationalist formation of President Aleksandar Vucic, they attributed only 23.58% to the pro-European coalition Serbia against violence , seven of whose leaders are on hunger strike.
Observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Parliament and the Council of Europe denounced serious irregularities, including “vote buying” et “ballot stuffing”. But the Serbian president assures that these elections “were the most honest (…) in the recent history of Serbia” and accuses “powerful foreign states” to seek to “destabilize the country”.
Commando operation in Kosovo
This deleterious climate reflects the strategy of tension maintained by Mr. Vucic, confirming the growing doubts about Serbia’s European orientation. In power for almost ten years, the president displays his admiration for the former dictator Slobodan Milosevic, who died before the end of his trial for crimes against humanity and genocide.
Aleksandar Vucic has not abandoned the ambition to regain control of Kosovo, whose independence proclaimed in 2008 he never accepted, as the Serbian commando operation aborted in September in this country seems to indicate. Finally, the Serbian president, although a candidate for membership in the EU, from which he receives funds, refuses to align with European sanctions against Russia and has stopped implementing the reforms demanded by the Union .
Also read the report: Article reserved for our subscribers In Kosovo, return to a Serbian operation inspired by the capture of Crimea
Europeans have long believed that Serbia’s trade ties with the EU, as well as the country’s economic development, would eventually trump Mr. Vucic’s nationalist rhetoric. They now have every reason to cautiously observe its double game. In particular France, very attached to the ambition of linking the Balkans, and therefore Serbia, to the Union. The dilemma is anything but simple, because the more the prospect of Serbia’s entry into the EU seems to recede, the more Russia and China take advantage of it to advance their pawns.
But the example of Viktor Orban’s Hungary, which intends to advance as a Trojan horse for Russia in the EU, must encourage member states to demand drastic and irreversible respect for the criteria of the rule of law in order to to avoid one day Belgrade repeating the same tactics. Europeans know, from their history, that the risks of slippage in the Balkans can have disastrous consequences, well beyond the region. In the context of tension exacerbated by Russian aggression in Ukraine, their vigilance is required regarding the excesses of the Serbian president.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Austria and Hungary on the offensive at the European Council to support the entry of the Balkan countries into the EU
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