Ljudmila Cvetkovic and Branka Mihajlovic
Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic’s foreign itinerary in the past month includes two important stops: Berlin and Moscow.
At the beginning of June, Vucic met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and on Monday, July 7, he has scheduled a visit to Russia, where he will be received by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The current Serbian government has announced that they will focus diplomatic efforts on these two locations until the end of their mandate.
Vucic will discuss two major topics with his Russian counterparts: the Ukrainian crisis and South Stream, a planned gas pipeline to transport Russian natural gas through the Black Sea to Bulgaria and through Serbia.
Since Serbia is scheduled to preside over the OSCE next year, Ukraine will be an important issue for Vucic in Moscow, says Dusan Lazic, former Serbian ambassador to Kiev.
“We can consider this issue to be one of the most controversial international topics. And we are going to be in a situation where we will be coordinating the work of OSCE while trying to find solutions that are acceptable to both the East and the West. That is not easy to achieve, because the Russian side will try to bring its position to the fore. The Serbian OSCE presidency will be a huge challenge for our policy and for our relations with other countries and it will not be easy at all to coordinate all that and to bring all the positions and interests together,” he says.
Russian political interests and the extent of its clout in Serbia were demonstrated during the formation of the current government. Moscow was unhappy with the former Minister of Energy Zorana Mihajlovic who criticized the gas deal between Serbia and Russia. As a result of Moscow’s dissatisfaction, she was replaced.
Serbia will now continue to try to balance between Moscow and Berlin, partly because of historical Serbian affiliation with Moscow and partly due to economic pragmatism, says independent analyst and journalist Boris Varga.
“After Serbia explicitly chose the European path [by actively seeking EU membership], Belgrade cannot count on Moscow’s political support. But Serbia still needs economic support from Russia that Moscow is unwilling to offer without political concessions. Russia has led such a policy for more than two decades with the former USSR countries with which they are currently trying to develop a customs union. Therefore, while developing economic ties with Russia we can expect its political presence in the Balkans. Moreover, Russia is currently working on its new project called the Eurasian Union. Its realization will need many negotiation strategies with the West, and the Balkans and Serbia could be instrumental in one of them,” says Varga.
Another important issue that will be discussed in Moscow is the South Stream project. That is another delicate situation for Serbia. On the one hand, Serbia would like to benefit from that Russian gas stream but on the other hand it has signed an EU energy agreement that implies very strict and precise rules.
Lazic says, “Before we signed an agreement regarding the South Stream project, we had to be really careful about that, I have to admit. On the one hand, we have to make sure that it is built because that is in our interest, but we also have to obey all the rules that all the countries that wanted to join the EU essentially accepted. Many agree that the EU and Russia should solve this issue and that Serbia should step away. But I am afraid that we will be unable to achieve that.”
There is little chance to throw the ball into someone else’s court.
Sijka Pistolova, editor of the Balkan Energy Observer website, says, “As a member of the EU, a country is obliged to respect EU laws and legislation. And the law says that any monopolization of conditions is forbidden. That means that you cannot produce the gas and own the pipeline that will transport the gas, as Gazprom does. That is clear. You are giving one company, which carries out two or three activities, the possibility to blackmail you.”
When he announced his visit to Russia, Vucic said he expects open talks in which all the objections and complaints of both sides will be discussed. More specifically, Russia could blame Serbia for not paying its gas debt of 300 million euros. A pending loan worth USD 800 million for the upgrade of Serbian railways, a project on which work has already begun, will also be discussed.
Vucic did not mention Serbia’s complaints that the country, supposedly considered the Balkan friend most loyal to Russia, is among the countries that pay the highest price for gas. It is not clear whether Vucic will bring that up.