In July, a group of 56 European and American lawmakers sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, demanding a tougher Western policy toward Serbia, primarily regarding its relations with Kosovo.
“We are asking for balance and proportionality to return in dealing with Kosovo and Serbia,” the Western officials wrote, adding that the current approach is not working.
Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence, which it declared in 2008, and tensions have been a constant between the two countries since then. This year, there have been several flare-ups in northern Kosovo, where the ethnic Serbs are a majority of the population.
The letter was followed by articles in U.S. and German media outlets, such as CNN and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, criticizing the West for perceived appeasement of Serbia, a Western Balkan country that the United States and its allies hope to persuade to join in sanctions on Russia over its war in Ukraine.
For Richard Kraemer, a fellow at the U.S. Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Western media coverage is no surprise: “These modest displays of discontent with Belgrade indicate that certain Western leaders are fed up with [Serbian President Aleksandar] Vucic’s manipulative shenanigans.”
On the other hand, Bodo Weber, political analyst and senior associate at the Democratization Policy Council in Berlin, said he does see the letter as evidence that the West is changing course toward Serbia or Vucic.
“That change would be welcome, but unfortunately, we don’t see such a turnaround in sight. Rather, the letter of a few Western parliamentarians attracted the attention of the Western media, which normally rarely write about the region,” Weber said in a written response to questions from VOA.
During a press conference in Belgrade at the beginning of August, Vucic claimed that he personally — and not the country — is being criticized for not recognizing the independence of Kosovo and for “defending the interests of the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro.”
U.S. Ambassador to Belgrade Christopher Hill defended the U.S. approach to relations with Vucic’s government in an exclusive interview with VOA’s Serbian Service.
“You have policies not just for success but because they are the right policies to have,” Hill said. “We weigh our interest in formulating a policy, and we proceed with it on the idea that this is the right thing for our government to do.”
Belgrade’s ties with Russia
Serbia is formally seeking EU membership and has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations, yet it has maintained its historically friendly relations with Moscow.
“Everyone should join sanctions, certainly countries aspiring to join Europe,” Hill said. “We think that is the right thing to do and would like to see Serbia do the same and march toward Euro-Atlantic systems.”
Johanna Deimel, a German expert on the Balkans, pointed to published reports, based on a leaked U.S. intelligence document, that Serbia has quietly agreed to provide arms to Ukraine for its defense against the Russian invasion.
“On one hand, Belgrade has been criticized for refusing to join the EU sanctions against Russia, and on the other hand, it seems that, for example, arms deliveries to Ukraine are helping to turn a blind eye elsewhere,” she said.
She also said efforts to align Serbia more closely with the West are complicated by Russian influence in the region’s media and its investments in the energy sector in the Balkans.
Kraemer noted that Serbia is almost entirely dependent on natural gas supplies from Russia and maintains trade and military ties with Moscow, while pro-Russian sentiments are high in the country.
The West “has bent over backwards to try and lure Belgrade into the transatlantic fold with carrots while looking from the sidelines at Serbia’s proxy status vis-a-vis the Kremlin’s Balkan agenda,” he said.
“Why they thought this would work, considering Vucic’s overt refusal to get on board concerning Ukraine, remains a mystery to me.”
In the July letter, the U.S. and EU lawmakers criticized Vucic for close ties and support to Milorad Dodik, the nationalist president of the Republic of Srpska in neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dodik has been sanctioned by the United States for “undermining the Dayton peace accords,” a U.S.-sponsored agreement that ended the Balkan war in the 1990s.
Another obstacle to better relations between Belgrade and the West is the pro-Russian stance of Serbian spy chief Aleksandar Vulin, who has been sanctioned by the United States for alleged involvement in illegal arms shipments, drug trafficking and misuse of public office.
“The Treasury Department’s sanctioning of Vulin — unprecedented as he is a sitting Serbian government official — can be rightly interpreted as a warning,” Kraemer said. “It remains to be seen whether Washington and its partners have the gumption to sanction others of similar ilk to Vulin.”
In his interview with VOA, Hill said the dispute over Vulin, whom Vucic has refused to sack, has not derailed the Western outreach to Belgrade.
“Our sanctions are not against the institutions but on the individual. We continue to work with Serbia in areas where we can find agreement,” he said.
The issue of Kosovo
U.S.-Serbian relations are also troubled by Belgrade’s refusal to recognize the sovereignty of Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, almost a decade after U.S.-led NATO forces intervened to stop the ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanians by the Serbian government.
A U.S. State Department study concluded that at least 6,000 Kosovar Albanians had been the victims of mass murder by Serbian forces in 1999.
The latest tensions flared in April when ethnic Serbs boycotted local elections held in northern Kosovo, where they are a majority. That led to the election of ethnic Albanian mayors, who moved into their offices with the help of Kosovo’s riot police.
Serbs tried to prevent the new mayors from taking over the premises, but the police fired tear gas to disperse them. Serbs engaged in fierce clashes with NATO peacekeepers, leaving more than 50 rioters and 30 international troops injured.
The election boycott followed a collective resignation by Serb officials from the area, including administrative staff, judges and police officers, in November 2022.
During EU-mediated talks between Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, the two were reported to have reached an agreement in Ohrid, a lake town in neighboring North Macedonia, to normalize their relations.
However, this agreement has not been implemented, and each side accuses the other of stalling the process.
According to Deimel, the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina “needs a complete reset.”
“It is incomprehensible to me why Josep Borell, the head of European diplomacy, and others praised the ‘Ohrid Agreement’ so much,” Deimel said. “It was a serious attempt, a concrete German-French proposal on the table, and then Vucic walks out the door and says that he did not sign the agreement.”
Hill said that the Kosovo issue is of some urgency and that progress toward its resolution is necessary.
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