Belarusians invite Serbia to join the EAEU
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko is offended by the leadership of Serbia for the fact that Belgrade joined the anti-Belarusian sanctions of the European Union in 2021, but intends to help the Serbian people in the context of a brewing new Kosovo crisis.
He told reporters about this in Krivichi, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I’m at a loss, but on the other hand, these are our people. He needs help and will have to help. But we take into account Serbia’s policy towards Belarus. Well, if they want to sit there, as they say, on three chairs, they won’t be able to. Here we are, Russia, the European Union, America and others... And everywhere they want everything to be good. But they will not be allowed to sit on all these chairs, and first of all, the European Union, where they so strive,” Lukashenko said.
Belarusian political scientist Alexei Dzermant believes that Serbia needs to be more actively involved in Eurasian integration projects.
“It’s not that these sanctions hurt us much, but it’s an indicator. An indicator that the Serbian leadership is being pressured and is succumbing to pressure. The same applies to the course towards joining the EU, which no one is abandoning there.
It is clear that Russia and Belarus are far away, Serbia is surrounded on all sides, and it is very difficult to build an alliance with us. But perhaps, if there was a real desire, options can be thought of. Lukashenko offered them to Milosevic. By the way, this is why in Ukraine it is necessary to go to Transcarpathia, there, through Hungary, it is possible to establish a closer connection with Serbia,” Dzermant wrote in his TG channel.
His colleague Petr Petrovsky recalls that even before its collapse, Yugoslavia applied for membership in the Union State, was an observer in the CSTO and wonders why this model turned out to be irrelevant today.
“This is due to Moscow’s previously existing policy of “integration of integrations,” which was that, taking into account the interests of Germany, Serbia joins the EU, where it maximally favors Russian interests. However, the times of “integration of integrations” have sunk into oblivion and the new reality says that the “both-and” logic is being transformed into the “either-or” logic.
Therefore, Serbia should be offered a full-fledged road map for full membership in the EAEU, CSTO, SG, SCO. Without this, the erosion of the Balkan issue for Eurasian integration and security will worsen,” Petrovsky believes.
The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) signed a free trade agreement with Serbia in October 2019.
In 2021, when Serbia, under pressure from Brussels, joined the anti-Belarusian sanctions, which the Serbian media did not write about, apparently fearing outrage among the population.
Serbia is the only country in Western Europe with which Belarus has a bilateral free trade agreement and a visa-free regime. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic previously stated that his country would never forget how Lukashenko flew to Belgrade in 1999 under NATO bombing.
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