By Conor Gallagher
Much like Ankara, Belgrade has tried to stay above the fray in the conflict between NATO and Russia. While Serbia doesn’t share the same geographic significance and isn’t a member of NATO like Turkey, it is one of Russia’s strongest allies in Europe, and is now receiving the same pressure to choose a side.
Comments from European leaders describe how Serbia’s long-term goal of joining the EU is at risk due to its friendliness with Moscow.
In the more immediate term, Belgrade is facing an economic fallout from newly restricted energy supplies, and the move risks inflaming tensions between longtime adversaries Croatia and Serbia and within Bosnia where both countries support ethnonationalist parties.
The most recent round of EU sanctions prohibits the transport of Russian oil across Croatia to Serbia, one of the few European countries not to join the sanctions party against Moscow. From Euractiv:
Until recently, Serbia had hoped that Croatia’s pipeline operator JANAF would continue to ship Russian crude oil, brought to Croatia on oil tankers, to NIS, in line with an agreement signed in January. This came to an end with the latest sanctions agreement.
In Prague for the inaugural meeting of the European Political Community, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told reporters that Croatia had “already boasted and taken credit for the full ban on Russian oil transport.”
Serbia has no outlets to the sea and will therefore be forced to pay much higher prices to import oil than they would have with its deal with Russia.
“Croatia does not create our foreign policy,” Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said. “It is created by our citizens, through their democratically elected representatives.”
The Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, meanwhile, said “Serbia cannot sit on two stools and expect progress on its European path while disrespecting sanctions against Russia.”
Serbia is in a tough spot as the EU is its top trading partner while Russia comes in second. 63% of Serbia’s overall trade in 2019 was done with the European Union. Russia and China rank respectively on second and third places but at considerably lower trade levels – ten times lower than trade between Serbia and the EU, but Serbia has relied on Russian gas and oil imports.
But Serbia in recent years has looked increasingly eastwards for trade – even signing a trade deal with the Russian-led Eurasian Union in 2019 despite threats from Brussels. Belgrade and Moscow also have strong military cooperation, and Russia supports Serbia internationally on issues such as Kosovo.
Serbia’s sole oil company is NIS, in which Russian Gazprom Neft and Gazprom together hold a majority stake. For natural gas, Serbia relies on the Turkstream pipeline that carries supplies from Russia to Turkey and onto Serbia via Bulgaria, but Turkstream is also under threat from sanctions and other means.
In May Serbia secured a new three-year deal with Gazprom for natural gas, and Belgrade is now working on a pipeline from Hungary that will transport Russian oil. From Al Jazeera:
Hungary and Serbia have agreed to build a pipeline to supply Serbia with Russia’s crude oil as European Union sanctions limit supplies via Croatia, the Hungarian government has announced.
Hungary has been critical of EU sanctions against Russia. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said the sanctions have “failed as governments in Europe are collapsing ‘like dominoes’”.
Inside Serbia the public is overwhelmingly opposed to adopting sanctions on Russia.
New poll shows just how widespread Serbian support for Russian imperialism is
⬛ 81% are against aligning sanctions on Russia with the EU
⬛ 70% believe the US threatens Serbia’s independence in decision-making
⬛ The majority supports joining the Eurasian Union, not the EU pic.twitter.com/HDP8y3zCzu
— Admirim (@admirim) October 7, 2022
Croatia leading the charge as the EU demands Belgrade turn away from Russia is causing alarm in Serbia. The Western media often explain that Serbia and Russia have close ties due to Orthodox Crhristianity being the major religion in both countries. What they always omit though is how both countries share a common recent history of being attacked by forces from the heart of Europe. From Diana Johnstone:
During World War II, German occupation had split [Yugoslavia] apart. Serbia, allied to France and Britain in World War I, was subject to a punishing occupation. Idyllic Slovenia was absorbed into the Third Reich, while Germany supported an independent Croatia, ruled by the fascist Ustasha party, which included most of Bosnia, scene of the bloodiest internal fighting. When the war ended, many Croatian Ustasha emigrated to Germany, the United States and Canada, never giving up the hope of reviving secessionist Croatian nationalism.
In Washington in the 1990s, members of Congress got their impressions of Yugoslavia from a single expert: 35-year-old Croatian-American Mira Baratta, assistant to Sen. Bob Dole (Republican presidential candidate in 1996). Baratta’s grandfather had been an important Ustasha officer in Bosnia and her father was active in the Croatian diaspora in California. Baratta won over not only Dole but virtually the whole Congress to the Croatian version of Yugoslav conflicts blaming everything on the Serbs.
Now leaders across the EU are saying that Serbia’s reluctance to support EU sanctions against Russia could threaten the country’s ambition to join the European Union. From the Serbian Monitor:
The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said that Serbia’s EU accession process will be ‘slowed down’ if Belgrade does not impose sanctions on Russia.
Borrell told N1 television that “the EU accession process requires alignment with its foreign policy”. “In the European Commission report, we see that Serbia, as well as Turkey, are wavering on the issue of alignment with EU foreign policy. The decline in alignment combined with close relations with the Putin regime means that there is no choice but to signal a decline in alignment within Chapter 31,” Borrell said. He also stated that ‘there is no deadline’ by which Serbia must introduce sanctions against Russia and added that Serbia ‘must follow EU foreign policy’.
EU Vice-President Margaritis Schinas recently told Euronews that “many leaders are looking around and they expect everybody to share the communality of the project in these difficult moments, and in particular those who aspire to be with us”.
The European Union and the US are questioning Serbia’s commitment to join the EU after Belgrade signed an agreement with Moscow pledging long-term “consultations” on foreign policy matters amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.
US Ambassador to Serbia Christopher R Hill said “further alignment with Russia is a step in the wrong direction and contrary to Serbia’s stated European aspirations”.
“The United States believes that no country should be expanding cooperation with Russia while it continues its war of aggression against Ukraine,” Hill said in a statement to The Associated Press.
Additionally Brussels offered a pointed rebuke to Belgrade on October 12 when the EU Commission advised member states to grant Bosnia and Herzegovina candidate status, but criticized Serbia for not aligning with the bloc on Russia sanctions. From the EU Observer:
The commission’s report noted that “Serbia did not align with the EU restrictive measures against Russia”, and its “alignment rate” on council decisions and declarations by the EU’s foreign affairs chief dropped from 64 percent in 2020 to 45 percent in 2022.
The EU executive also said in its report that as “a matter of priority”, Serbia needs to fulfill its commitment to align with EU sanctions.
The commission also said Serbia needs to robustly tackle all forms of “disinformation.”
In other words, Brussels is demanding Serbia cut ties with Russia and join the bloc in committing economic suicide or else.