Serbia and the Non-Aligned Movement: From Equality and International Law to Expo

Sixty-five years after the Non-Aligned Movement brought major leaders to Belgrade, Serbia is presenting the old Yugoslav legacy alongside its flagship project, Expo 2027. The contrast is hard to miss. In 1961, leaders including Gamal Abdel Nasser, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sukarno and Kwame Nkrumah came to the city. Today, the gathering includes only two presidents, several prime ministers and lower-level delegations from around 30 countries.

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Expo 2027 will also be an opportunity for us and our friends to join us, present their countries and launch business cooperation for the future.

The movement was conceived as a third path for states that did not want to join NATO or align with Moscow, as well as countries emerging from colonial rule. Yugoslavia helped found it and gained prestige and global political influence through the initiative. Serbia, by contrast, is now only an observer, and the movement itself has lost much of its former importance without securing the independent third path its founders envisioned.

At the Palace of Serbia, the former Federal Executive Council building, officials returned to themes associated with the movement’s early years: sovereignty, equality and international law. President Aleksandar Vučić also linked the gathering to Expo 2027. “Expo 2027 will also be an opportunity for us and our friends to join us, present their countries and launch business cooperation for the future,” he said.

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In a situation where Belgrade’s foreign-policy cards have weakened, have not improved despite signals from the United States, and there is a complete standstill with the EU and no progress on cluster three, Belgrade needed something that could once again present it as a foreign-policy player.

Branka Latinović, a diplomat, said Belgrade’s foreign-policy options had weakened, with no progress on European Union negotiating cluster three despite signals from the United States. In that situation, she said, Belgrade needed something that could again present it as a foreign-policy player. She criticized the suggestion that Serbia represents the Non-Aligned Movement’s former brand, calling that an abuse of Yugoslavia’s diplomatic legacy because Serbia is only one of its successors.

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It is obvious that the aim is to show that Belgrade, Serbia, is the successor to a major brand such as the Non-Aligned Movement, which is an abuse because Serbia is only one of the successors to the Non-Aligned Movement and its policy.

Vučić has proposed three initiatives: “Non-Aligned Digitally,” a film festival for the movement and an international seminar for young diplomats from member states. Latinović questioned whether an observer could launch such projects and said it was unclear how members would respond. Delegations will nonetheless attend a dinner hosted by Prime Minister Đuro Macut and visit the House of Flowers, Belgrade Waterfront and the Expo construction site.

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Serbia is not a full member of the Non-Aligned Movement. It can participate as an observer in some way, but launching initiatives does not really correspond with that status, and I do not know how the member states will accept it.