The NIS, General Staff, the collapse of the canopy at the Novi Sad Railway Station and Jadar scandals have shown that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is not so much interested in money as in power, but also that the entire system in Serbia is based on Bolshevik principles. On the one hand, the government must be flawless, perfect, always right and never on the wrong side, and on the other hand, the judgment of the party, that is, the leader, is more important than the judgment of institutions, whether they are judicial, administrative or regulatory.
Consequently, the leader of the Serbian Progressive Party does not think economically, but rather in a vassal-imperial way, which is to say, humbly towards the stronger, and arrogantly towards the weaker or those who do not have the interest or instruments to question his authority.
Hence the condescending behavior towards those who can threaten the regime in Belgrade (read the USA, Russia and China), flattering towards those on whom the government depends to a greater or lesser extent economically (read Germany, Italy, France and Turkey) and arrogant towards those who cannot effectively threaten the government (read Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia) or do not have such ambitions (read EU institutions); the exception, of course, are individuals within European institutions, primarily critically minded MEPs.
In a very short period of time, four scandals have intertwined that have the potential to shake the foundations of the thirteen-year Progressive Party rule. The NIS issue has confirmed that at the top of the Serbian government we have people who care more about the interests of the Russian Federation than Serbia, even to the point of endangering the survival of the state of Serbia.
The General Staff affair showed that we have government representatives in Belgrade who are willing to falsify or forge official documents in order to facilitate business arrangements with the US president's family that should imply the benevolence of the American administration and the privileged status of the Belgrade regime.
Covering up, obstructing and diverting the investigation into the collapse of the railway station canopy in Novi Sad, apart from its aim to save the current government from responsibility, also serves the purpose of keeping China out of the story. Also, we should not forget that the railway station in Novi Sad is part of China's geostrategic project to connect the Greek port of Piraeus, under the administration of the Chinese, and Budapest, China's most loyal ally in Europe. In Beijing, they would not forgive Belgrade if the judicial investigation and verdicts showed how Chinese companies operate, which act in Europe as an instrument of expanding Chinese influence and hegemony, but also jeopardize its geostrategic instrument.
The Jadro story has fallen into the background in the last few months, but it will resurface sooner or later. It is not just about the strategic interest in exploiting an important resource for the development of modern technologies, but also about the money already invested, the promises made to European partners, especially Germany, and the steps taken that do not allow for a return to the old ways without major and long-term consequences.
The four aforementioned scandals represent a kind of paradigm of Serbia's foreign policy based on the so-called "four pillars", the idea behind which was not created by Vučić, but by former Serbian President Boris Tadić and some of his close associates who today publicly or less publicly work for the ruling regime.
The foreign policy megalomania of official Belgrade is a kind of atavism of the Yugoslav heritage and Tito's foreign policy, from the Non-Aligned Movement to close relations with the American administration and the Soviet nomenclature, of course after the death of Stalin.
Serbia does not have any of the necessary characteristics for conducting current foreign policy between major planetary and continental powers: it does not have geostrategic importance like Turkey, it does not have nuclear weapons like North Korea, it does not have demographic potential like India, it does not have natural resources like the petro-monarchies in the Persian Gulf, and it does not produce anything strategically important, like, say, Taiwan produces semiconductors.
Promising Russia that Serbia will be its "fifth column" in Europe, giving guarantees to China that Belgrade will be a secure part of the Piraeus-Budapest transversal, offering business arrangements to the Americans and assistance with Ukraine, feigning the priority of EU membership, as well as brotherhood with Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey, are directly opposing goals whose realization cancels out each other.
It was only a matter of time before the interested parties would render an account to the authorities in Belgrade for the promises made. Empires can have multiple vassals, but vassals cannot belong to multiple empires at the same time. The fact that from time to time someone is tolerated in a double, triple or quadruple game is proof of his irrelevance or temporary imperial distraction.
The basic rule in conducting foreign policy of small countries is that they do not set incompatible and contradictory tasks and ambitions, and that their leaders do not get carried away with the idea that their countries can have a special status thanks to personal relationships. Empires have no feelings, and they do not forgive, while vassals, satellites and clients, that is, their leaders, tend to delude themselves about special and friendly relations.
Russia and China do not hesitate to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries using all available means, from propaganda to economic-energy to intelligence-military, when they have an interest in doing so. The list of countries is long, from the former Soviet republics to Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Sahel, the Near and Middle East and Latin America.
Another widespread characteristic among Serbian politicians, regardless of which party, ideology, worldview or orientation they belong to, over the last 40 years is that they never miss an opportunity and always make decisions late, usually after the train has already passed.
Slobodan Milošević, when the Slovenes offered an asymmetrical federation, wanted a unitary Yugoslavia; when the Slovenes and Croats offered a confederation, the Serbs were in favor of a loose federation; when Ljubljana and Zagreb decided to move towards secession, Belgrade proposed a confederation. A similar scenario was repeated with the Serbs in Croatia who, under pressure from Milošević, rejected the Z-4 plan and thus gave Zagreb justification for “Storm”.
The trend continued in the negotiations with Washington over Kosovo - Belgrade was always late and agreed to conditions that were no longer on the table, while rejecting the existing ones; this led to Rambouillet and the bombing of Serbia in the spring of 1999.
The change of government did not bring a turnaround in Serbian foreign policy, which remained slow, short-sighted and untimely. The separation of Serbia and Montenegro was postponed for several years, which contributed to Belgrade losing the most favorable wave for EU enlargement. Then, the governments of Vojislav Koštunica dragged the EU by the nose by obstructing cooperation with the Hague Tribunal.
The rule was always one step behind: when the EU asked Belgrade to send documents to The Hague so that Serbia could progress in the EU integration process, the Serbian authorities played deaf and mute. When Brussels raised the stakes and demanded the arrests of less important people indicted for war crimes, Belgrade tried to resolve the matter by delivering documents. When Brussels demanded the surrender of Karadžić and Mladić, Belgrade arrested Hadžić, Đorđević, Tolimir. When the EU asked for Mladić, Belgrade arrested Karadžić.
In the aforementioned vaudeville, the momentum for EU enlargement passed, and Serbia faced a new obstacle on the path to European integration - Kosovo.
The NIS affair is ending on the same principle. Vučić's regime knew exactly what was going to happen back in April 2022 when the warning came from the EU. On that occasion, the Union not only warned Belgrade, but also offered to help Serbia diversify its list of suppliers and partners in the energy sector.
Belgrade ignored all well-intentioned advice, information, and suggestions on how to avoid the situation it is currently in regarding NIS. Moreover, arrogant responses from government representatives who are on the Kremlin payroll or who are, for some other reason, Russian “useful idiots” have been arriving from the Serbian capital to European addresses.
For example, Moldova was in a far more unfavorable position than Serbia when Russia attacked Ukraine, and today it is completely independent of Russian gas, while it has diversified its oil supply so much that companies under Russian control cannot create a collapse or major problems.
The difference is that the Moldovan president abandoned the policy of sitting on multiple chairs, turned to the EU and asked for help from Brussels. That help arrived and today Moldova is energy independent of Russia and will soon be ahead of Serbia in the European integration process.
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