Analyst: Serbia's Vučić lost EU ally with Orbán's fall; ties with Brussels unlikely to improve

Florian Bieber, a political scientist, has offered a stark assessment of Serbia's relationship with the European Union, suggesting that the fall of Viktor Orbán in Hungary has deprived President Aleksandar Vučić of a key ally within the EU. Bieber's comments, made on N1 television, paint a grim picture, casting doubt on the possibility of improving ties between Belgrade and Brussels under the current Serbian leadership.

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I doubt that relations between the current authorities in Serbia and Brussels can be improved in the future.

Bieber's analysis highlights a fundamental disconnect. He argues that while some EU member states may wish to maintain pragmatic or economic ties with Serbia, viewing it as crucial for the Western Balkans, they are also aware that a return to normalcy in relations with Vučić is unlikely. The short timeframe before Serbian elections further complicates any potential improvement, leading Bieber to question if relations can ever truly recover.

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I think they can no longer be improved. Of course, there are member states that want to maintain relations for pragmatic or economic reasons, or because they interpret that Serbia is too important for the Western Balkans, but they are also aware that relations cannot return to normal with Vučić, especially if we look at the period until the elections in Serbia, and there is not enough time to improve relations by then. I doubt they can ever be improved in the future.

The political scientist also drew a parallel to the early 2010s, when the EU was more open to engaging with figures like Vučić and Tomislav Nikolić, then emerging from the Serbian Radical Party. At that time, the EU hoped that supporting them would help normalize Serbia's political system. Bieber contends that this strategy proved counterproductive, and the current situation is vastly different. The EU now struggles to find conventional political representatives to engage with, a stark contrast to the protest movements it previously overlooked.

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At that time, Vučić and Nikolić presented themselves as great Europeans, meaning they had transformed into Europeans, and at that time (in the EU) they had hope that through support for them they could normalize the political system in Serbia. Of course, the result was the complete opposite.

Furthermore, Bieber criticized the Serbian government's handling of democracy and its measures against universities, stating that the EU recognizes the government's unwillingness to improve democratic standards. He also commented on the potential withholding of EU funds under the Growth Plan, suggesting that the EU is becoming more assertive in its reactions to Serbia's actions, though he believes this assertiveness has been too slow in developing. The adoption of judicial laws without public debate and the government's perceived motivation to manipulate electoral conditions due to declining support were also cited as reasons for a lack of trust.

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The idea was - if there is a possibility of replacing the political parties in power that are all pro-European, that is some kind of normalization. Of course, the current situation is completely different, the reason for that difference is that mostly in the EU they think conventionally, they look for political representatives and parties to talk to, and they didn't have that in those protests, and that was the main obstacle.