Serbia in from the cold

Today Serbia initiates EU membership talks in Brussels. Just a few years ago the country was disrespected by the West, seen as an outcast committing genocide, bombed by NATO, and on the UN-sanctions list. It has been a long and painful transition where ultranationalists have changed opinions on for them important issues. In the 1990s, at the end of the Cold War, Yugoslavia broke up. The Serbs fought bloody wars against Croats and Bosniaks, and in Western media Serbia was presented as the guilty. Mass graves with hundreds of victims from the 1990s have been found as recent as in 2013. In 2010 the Serbian Parliament apologized for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8.000 Bosnian Muslims. That was one step in reconciliation efforts, more is needed.

Serbian PM Ivica Dacic (left)  and Greek PM Venizelos (right) today. 

Greece has the Presidency in the EU during January-June 2014.

The most difficult topic for the Serbs has been Kosovo. Kosovo was a Serb province and a site for historic battles against the Turks. But throughout the centuries ethnic Albanians became a majority. In 1989 Ibrahim Rugova led them in non-violent campaigns for autonomy against Serb President Slobodan Milosevic. They were not heard, and ethnic Albanians radicalized and attacked the Serbs. Serb police and army persecuted them, and in turn did not listen to Western protests. NATO bombed the Serbs in 1999 and Russia, which has been a protector of their co-fellow Slavs in Serbia for centuries, protested. But Russia was relatively weak and NATO ignored them. NATO and the EU gave Kosovo de facto autonomy, and in 2008 Kosovo declared its independence. Serbia has not accepted that, and neither have all EU-countries nor Russia.

Protests in Belgrade April 2013.

But in 2013 Serbia and Kosovo made an agreement, granting autonomy to Serbs in northern Kosovo. This was seen by many as an informal recognition of Kosovo, and opened the road to the EU. Serbs, also in northern Kosovo, protested against the deal which they simply don’t accept. But the government in Belgrade sees the EU as the vehicle to modernize and develop the country, so their strategy is EU membership. The negotiations will probably take several years, for Croatia it took 8 years. But the EU has already given funds of 6.2 billion euros that sugar the waiting period. That gives opportunities and hope for more benefits, so the Serbian elite choose the EU for now, hoping to get warm.

Map of Serbia and Kosovo. Serbian flag.

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Regards

Bjarte Bjørsvik