Vucic’s Opinion on the EU-Western Balkans Summit Declaration & more –29th Aug 2023

Dobar Dan from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 29th of August twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

On Tuesday the 22nd, an EU-Western Balkans Summit was held in Athens. Many of the leaders of the countries with EU candidate status and potential candidate status met, and that included President Vucic and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. During the summit, Vucic and Zelensky discussed bilateral relations between Serbia and Ukraine and briefly touched on the subject of Kosovo. Leaders who attended the meeting, Vucic included, issued a joint Declaration, which confirmed the support for Ukrainian independence and territorial integrity. However, after the summit ended, Vucic said that he did not agree with the Declaration calling for “more effective implementation of the sanctions against Russia”. Vucic also said that Serbia supports Ukrainian territorial integrity, adding that he hopes Ukraine will continue to do the same in return—in other words, that the country does not recognize Kosovo’s independence.

On the next day, on Wednesday the 23rd, Serbia joined a Ukraine-led platform on the reintegration of Crimea. In twenty fourteen, Russia annexed Crimea, and intwenty twenty-one Ukraine started the Crimea platform in order to reintegrate it into its territory. Since its launch, over sixty countries and organizations have joined the Crimea platform, including the US, the UK, NATO, and the EU. Serbia has since felt great pressure because it is entirely dependent on natural gas supplies from Russia and maintains trade and military ties with the country. Despite this, Serbia has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine repeatedly but never went as far as to sanction Russia for its aggression. PM Brnabic addressed the forum online and said that Serbia empathizes with Ukraine and its people.

Other Serbian officials are not so friendly in bilateral relations, as last week, Milos Vucevic, Serbian Defence Minister and the leader of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS, condemned the recent recognition of Kosovo’s independence from a few neighboring countries. Vucicevic addressed Montenegro and North Macedonia and said that their recognition of Kosovo would come back to hurt them, saying that it would be “just like Ukraine”. He also said that, by recognizing Kosovo, the two countries were interfering in Serbia’s internal affairs. Vucicevic also targeted Albania, accusing the country of trying to create Greater Albania in the region, a concept that seeks to unify Kosovo, Montenegro, Greece, and a part of North Macedonia.

Both Montenegro and North Macedonia condemned Vucicevic for these statements.

Let’s go back to the Russian invasion of Ukraine for a second.

From its start, many Ukrainian citizens fled their country, and Serbia was one of the places they resorted to. Eighteen months after the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war, dozens of Ukrainians gathered in Belgrade on Thursday the 24th, to mark the 32nd anniversary of Ukraine's independence from Moscow. The gathered carried Ukrainian flags and wore the traditional floral wreaths while explaining that Ukraine is fighting for its right to exist. One pro-Western opposition politician said that the act of backing Ukraine would be an act of defending democracy and human rights.

On Monday the 28th, PM Brnabic attended a panel on the Western Balkans, held as part of the Bled Strategic Forum, during which she spoke about Serbia’s path toward joining the EU. Brnabic highlighted that Serbian citizens are losing interest in being part of the EU because becoming a member is a very long process, and there’s no guarantee that Serbia will ever be an EU member country. She said that the constant changes in the criteria for making progress on the path towards EU membership also added to the problem, referring to the new demand the EU imposed once the war in Ukraine had started. This demand was for Serbia to align itself with the EU's foreign and security policy, meaning that the country should impose sanctions on Russia and de-escalate the tensions with Kosovo. Brnabic expressed her beliefs that EU integration brings numerous values with it, such as prosperity, peace, and the rule of law.

Speaking of EU, we mentioned last week that several Serb police officers resigned from the Kosovo police.

The EU spokesman Peter Stano addressed the recent resignations and said that the EU is deeply concerned about the situation. After the resignations took place, Pristina officials accused Serbia of pressuring the officers into leaving the Kosovo police. As the news broke, Stano said that any intimidation or threats toward the Serbs in the Kosovo police were unacceptable and should be halted. He added that such behavior is against the spirit of the normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

The US State Department also expressed its concerns over the resignations and highlighted Stano’s statements, adding that the US State Department condemns any effort to undermine diversity within Kosovo Police ranks.

The EU and the US are also no strangers to pressuring others. But Jamie Shea, the former NATO spokesman, thinks that the pressures from the West are not exerted on the correct parties. Shea said that instead of pressuring Kosovo, the West should focus on Serbia, adding that Kosovo is putting significant efforts toward de-escalation, unlike Serbia. He acknowledged the recent calmness in the Kosovo north and said that the US and the EU should remove their punitive measures against Kosovo. These measures included the suspension of invitations for Kosovo’s participation in high-level events and bilateral visits to the EU and member states. Shea added that the EU should condition Serbia's entry into the union by making it recognize Kosovo's independence.

Similarly to the tense bilateral relations, Serbia is also experiencing unrest within the country. as the seventeenth Serbia Against Violence protest took place in Belgrade on Saturday the 26th. We have been covering these protests for months now but still, thousands of people gathered in front of the National Assembly and walked to the building of the Public Service of Serbia and Regulatory Authority of Electronic Media, better known as REM. Protesters carried banners that called on REM to revoke the broadcasting licenses of certain television channels and asked the government to oust several corrupt officials who have powerful roles in the country. The protesters also brought cardboard cutouts of President Vucic, Deputy PM Sinisa Mali, and several others in prison jumpsuits.

In some economic news…

Zoran Martinovic, the director of the National Employment Service, warned about the recent record in the number of unemployed people in Serbia. Martinovic said that the current unemployment rate is at around ten percent, adding that the National Employment Service recorded about 390,000 unemployed people in the country. These numbers suggest that more than sixty percent of people who are within the Service’s records are unemployed long-term, meaning that they have been searching for a job for more than a year. Martinovic added that people with only a high school diploma make up fifty percent of the overall number of unemployed people in Serbia.

While on the topic of employment, last week the Union of Employers of Serbia and the Union of Independent Trade Unions of Serbia started negotiations with the government on increasing the minimum wage in twenty twenty-four.

At the meeting on Friday the 25th, the Ministry of Finance proposed a seventeen percent increase, bringing the monthly minimum wage to 47,000 dinars, or around 430 dollars. The trade unions, however, did not accept this proposal, since they believed that the increase should be much higher.

In other news…

Activists from the Right to Water initiative spoke to the news portal EURACTIV about the lack of access to safe drinking water in Serbia, estimating that around a million people in the country struggle with this issue. They pointed out that the key problems of water supply are the pollution of water sources as well as the upcoming privatization of utility companies. The activists also raised concerns over the unusually hot summer that Serbia is currently facing, further highlighting the importance of access to clean drinking water.

And that’s it for this week! Thanks for joining us!

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Do daljnjeg, zbogom!