Working Paper Serbia, Quo Vadis
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INSTITUTE FOR SECURITY POLICY (ISP) WORKING PAPER SERBIA, QUO VADIS? BELGRADE BETWEEN EU ACCESSION AND ALIGNMENT WITH RUSSIA by Maxim SAMORUKOV Fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of carnegie.ru VIENNA 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 2 II. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ........................................................................................ 4 III. ECONOMY ..................................................................................................................... 9 IV. SECURITY .................................................................................................................... 16 V. POLITICS AND SOFT POWER ...................................................................................... 21 VI. PROSPECTS ................................................................................................................. 26 With the friendly support of 1 I. INTRODUCTION In October 2019, six countries of the Western Balkans were shocked to learn that French President Emmanuel Macron had vetoed the start of negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia on accession to the European Union (EU). 1 Even before that, both Western Balkan societies and their ruling elites were under no illusion that EU membership was within reach. Still, the French veto dealt a major blow to the European aspirations of the whole region. The general perception was that if North Macedonia — with its anti-corruption revolution and painful reconciliation with Greece — hadn’t done enough to merit a start to accession talks, other countries should forget about making tangible progress in European integration in the coming years, if not decades. Increasingly, concerns are growing that this disillusionment with the European path may push the Balkan states into foreign policy adventurism and encourage them to compensate for setbacks in EU talks with poorly conceived deals with other world powers — like China, Russia, or Turkey. Serbia, the largest country in the region, is viewed as especially susceptible to such risks due to its deep and established ties with Russia. Developments after the French veto seem to corroborate these fears. In the ensuing months, Serbia has held joint drills with Russia, concluded a free trade agreement with the Moscow- led Eurasian Economic Union, rapidly completed the construction of its section of the 1 “France under fire for ‘historic error’ of blocking Balkan EU hopefuls,” Reuters, October 18, 2019 / / https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-summit-balkans/france-resists-eu-membership-talks-for-north- macedonia-and-albania-idUSKBN1WX1CT 2 Russia-sponsored Turkish Stream gas pipeline, and toyed with the idea of purchasing a Russian S-400 missile system.2 The country’s recent moves clearly demonstrate that weaker European prospects will press Belgrade to put even greater emphasis on its traditional policy of balancing between different world powers. However, this can hardly alter Serbia’s strong dependence on the West economically, security-wise, and even in its domestic politics. The country’s symbolic gestures toward Moscow notwithstanding, a pro-Western course will continue to guide Serbia’s foreign policy, as only cooperation with the West can ensure economic betterment and the political survival of the powers that be in Belgrade. 2 Maxim Samorukov, Did Emmanuel Macron Hand the Balkans to Russia? – Carnegie Moscow Center – December 12, 2019 / / https://carnegie.ru/commentary/80649 3 II. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND For all of Serbia’s supposedly deep connection with Russia, one can hardly find a bilateral relationship more overtly mythologized than that between these two countries. Misconceptions and false stereotypes permeate all their aspects, starting with history. Serbian, Russian, and even Western media invariably speak about “traditional ties,” “historical affinity,” and “eternal friendship” when describing the two states’ interactions, rarely giving a second thought to whether these clichés are well founded. However, the real history of Russia’s relations with Serbia is no less fraught with conflicts and mistrust than that of Russia’s relations with neighbouring Hungary or Bulgaria. And a pro-Russian sentiment, ostensibly deep-rooted in Serbian society, is in fact a recent phenomenon. During most of the nineteenth century, the fledgling Serbian state was ruled by the Obrenović dynasty, which was allied with Austria, not Russia.3 Only in the early twentieth century did pro-Russian politicians come to power in Serbia through a violent coup d’état. The new alliance was strong enough to drag Imperial Russia into the First World War, but it proved to be short-lived. As the Russian monarchy collapsed and the Bolsheviks took over in 1917, Belgrade was inundated with prominent White Russian émigrés and grew hostile to Soviet Moscow. 3 Barbara Jelavich, Russia’s Balkan Entanglements, 1806–1914 – Cambridge University Press, 1991 4 The two states only reestablished formal diplomatic ties in the summer of 1940, following the breakout of the Second World War. In fact, Yugoslavia, ruled by the Serbian dynasty, was the last country in Central and Eastern Europe to establish ties with the Soviet Union. A short spell of cooperation after World War II ended abruptly in 1948 with the split between two ambitious leaders: Joseph Stalin and Josip Broz Tito. Stalin’s death in 1953 raised hopes for reconciliation, but they failed to materialize. Despite adopting socialism, Yugoslavia maintained distance from the Moscow-led Warsaw Pact and Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, opting for the Non-Alignment Movement instead. The early 1990s saw both countries democratize and their relations grow even more strained. Serbian strongman Slobodan Milošević allied himself with the domestic rivals of the new Russian President Boris Yeltsin: hard-line nationalists and unrepentant communists. The two leaders’ acrimony, along with Russia’s serious domestic problems, contributed to the Kremlin’s eagerness to cooperate with the West in the early stages of the breakup of Yugoslavia. During the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia was in no hurry to back its Serbian brethren. Instead, Moscow declared its support for major Western initiatives: in the United Nations, it duly voted to sanction the Milošević regime, impose a no-fly zone in Bosnia, and establish the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague.4 The situation changed only in the late 1990s. Russia was vexed by NATO’s eastward expansion and viewed the West’s actions in post-socialist Europe with growing suspicion. 4 Dimitar Bechev, Rival Power, Russia’s Influence in Southeast Europe – Yale University Press, 2017 5 After NATO bypassed the UN Security Council to bomb Serbia in 1999 with the aim of stopping ethnic cleansing in the Serbian province of Kosovo, the Russian leadership became convinced that the West’s approach to the breakup of Yugoslavia was a dress rehearsal for military action against Russia, a multi-ethnic federation with no shortage of restive regions. This perception has proven to be extremely persistent and was held by many of Russia’s ruling elites as late as 2014. Speaking after the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, Russian President Vladimir Putin remarked: “Look at what they did to Yugoslavia. They cut it into small pieces and now manipulate everything that can be manipulated. … That’s basically what someone apparently wants to do to us.”5 A shared grudge against the “hypocritical West” brought the Russian and Serbian leadership, as well as many ordinary Russians and Serbs, closer together. The two countries decided to sweep their many historical disagreements under the rug and revive the century-old myth of eternal Russian-Serbian friendship. Their emerging affinity got a further boost in the late 2000s. The Serbian leadership was shocked by the decision of most Western nations to recognize Kosovo when the breakaway province unilaterally proclaimed independence in February 2008. In response, Belgrade successfully sought Russian support to reduce the humiliation for Serbia and prevent full international recognition of — and UN membership for — Kosovo. Russia was also interested in growing closer with Serbia. At that moment, Moscow was undertaking its most serious attempt at economic expansion into the Balkans. The EU was admitting a number of new member states from Central and Eastern Europe, and the 5 Direct Line with Vladimir Putin. April 17, 2014// http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20796 6 Russian authorities and business community saw an opportunity to strengthen Russia’s economic position in the former Yugoslavia before Brussels could impose restrictions on these countries. After gaining a foothold in the Balkans, Russian companies hoped they would be better positioned to enter EU markets. Moreover, the Balkan countries’ own economic outlook was quite promising, with GDP growing by about 5% a year. Still, those hopes were largely dashed by the global financial crisis of 2008–2009. The political closeness between Russia and Serbia proved difficult to convert into practical cooperation. With the exception of the energy sector, where substantial Russian investments indeed materialized, the two countries had little to offer one another in economic terms. Their ties were as superficial as ever. Even when former radical nationalists with overtly pro-Russian slogans