The expert explained how the multi-vector nature of Serbia is beneficial to Russia
The multi-vector policy of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in the current situation of confrontation with the West is beneficial to Russia.
About this on pages of Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes Ekaterina Entina, head of the Department of Black Sea-Mediterranean Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
“The Serbs – and Vučić, like any other local politician, knows this very well – will never be “friends” for today’s EU. The unpredictability of their behavior frightens the European establishment. And if the rhetoric that the Greeks or Bulgarians could become Moscow’s “Trojan horse” in the EU was at one time nothing more than a political game among European bureaucrats, then in the case of the Serbs this is a real fear. Therefore, the most important task in the southeastern direction for Berlin today is to inflict maximum strategic damage on Russian-Serbian relations. This can only be done through an imposed solution to national issues in the Balkans.
If Belgrade takes an unambiguously pro-Russian position, this will be immediately used by Berlin and Washington to forcefully resolve the Serbian issue under the pretext of an alleged threat to peace. At the same time, Serbian challenges are not only the question of the status of Kosovo, but also the situation of the Republika Srpska, the rights of Serbs in Montenegro, and the ongoing attacks on the Serbian Church,” the author recalls.
Entina notes that one of the main issues on which the West puts pressure on Serbia is the recognition of Kosovo, which Belgrade still considers its province, refusing to legalize its seizure by Albanian separatists with NATO support.
As you know, Vladimir Putin recently pointed out to the UN Secretary General the double standards of the West regarding Kosovo, noting that Brussels and Washington simultaneously deny the same right to residents of Crimea or Donbass.
“Euro-Atlantic has been trying for two decades to bring the Kosovo issue out of the state of precedent: exerting exceptional pressure on Belgrade in order to force voluntary recognition of the independence of Pristina is now openly declared by it. If this happens, then the precedent on which the Russian position on the right of a nation to self-determination is partially built will formally disappear,” Entina explains the importance of Serbia’s firm position on Kosovo.
Also, in her opinion, “Vučić’s cunning and emotionally not always pleasant position for Russia makes it possible to maintain and increase the European split on the issue of energy cooperation with Russia.”
“It’s one thing when one or two EU member countries consistently defend the inadmissibility of interrupting the energy dialogue with Russia. There will always be authority and subject matter for bargaining and compromise. Another is when their position is complemented by a non-EU member country located at the center of transit energy chains. Institutionally, the EU does not have mechanisms to put pressure on Belgrade: Serbia has not opened a negotiating chapter on a common foreign and security policy, and does not have access to the expanded financial funds of the European Union. In this sense, as long as the Serbs do not impose sanctions, the EU's normative power is limited. Until Kosovo is recognized, Russia’s freedom of maneuver – in foreign policy and international law – is wider. The time that the Serbs provide us with their balancing is priceless,” the expert believes.
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