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These two look happy, don’t they?

That of course is EU envoy Miroslav Lajcak on the left and Serbian President Vucic on the right. Accompanying this photo, Lajcak wrote:

Arriving in Belgrade this morning, I met with @predsednikrs @avucic. In our discussion, we focused on the strategic outlook for 2024, took stock on the state of play in the Dialogue and spoke about the next steps in the normalisation of relations with Kosovo.

Despite Lajcak’s effort to portray the meeting in neutral terms, there are good reasons for the grim looks.

The tilt is definitively eastward

Vucic is increasingly alienated from the West the Europeans want him to embrace. Just in the last few months, he has

1. Sponsored a terrorist attack inside Kosovo intended to spark a response that would allow him to move his military into his neighbor’s north.
2. Mobilized the Serbian army for that purpose.
3. Conducted a fraudulent election in Belgrade, importing thousands of voters from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
4. Aligned Serbia increasingly with the strongmen not only of Russia and China but also Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Hungary.
5. Increasingly supported the secessionist ambitions of Milorad Dodik, the strongman of the Serb-majority 49% of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

So far as I am aware, the only tidbits Vucic has offered the West are acceptance of Kosovo documents and license plates in Serbia and steps towards payment by Serbs in Kosovo of their electricity bills. I doubt however many Kosovo Albanians will risking their windshields to drive into Serbia with Kosovo plates. We’ll surely need to wait a while before the bills are paid.

What Lajcak should be saying

So what should Lajcak be saying to Vucic once the cameras are out of the room? @ivanastradner gives us part of the answer with this tweet about the UK specialy envoy for the Balkans:

Special envoy to the Western Balkans sent crystal clear messages: 1. Serbia should impose sanctions on Russia. 2. Serbia should investigate elections irregularities. 3. Republika Srpska cannot be an independent state.

telegram channels are so upset…

But that would not suffice. The Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia will have little impact. I would stop asking for them. Belgrade hardly needs to investigate the election irregularities. It needs to rerun the elections. The EU needs to make it clear that Brussels will suspend accession negotiations with Belgrade in response to any future mobilization of the Serbian Army against Kosovo. Belgrade should surrender the avowed ring leader of the September 24 attack to the Kosovo authorities for trial. Brussels require that Vucic publicly renounce the Russian-sponsored, irredentist “Serbian world” program that has endangered the sovereignty and territoriality of Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Macedonia.

https://twitter.com/ivanastradner/status/1751450967504039968/photo/1

The Americans should be chiming in

Washington is in part responsible for the appeasement the EU has undertaken in respone to Belgrade’s defection. It needs to change its tune, in public as well as in private. In addition to pushing on the points above, the US should put its money where its mouth is. There should be no more World Bank money or other multilateral financial assistance for Serbia until it accepts in both word and deed the February and March agreements that both the EU and US claim are legally binding.

The Americans should also revivify their own relations with Pristina and try to bend the EU back into a friendlier relationship with Pristina. The “consequences” Brussels levied on Kosovo last year because of lack of progress in the dialogue with Belgrade were always unjustiably one-sided. Now they look ridiculous. The police the EU wanted withdrawn from Kosovo prevented a disastrous outcome last September 24 when they responded effectively and professionally to the terrorist attack Belgrade sponsored. The non-Serb mayors elected in polls Belgrade got the Serb majorities in the four northern municipalities of Kosovo to boycott have likewise behaved professionally while awaiting a new election.

Smiles all around?

The Balkans are a minor theater of conflict in today’s world. The wars in the Ukraine and the Middle East as well as the Chinese threat against Taiwan are far more important. But even minor instability in the Balkans could greatly complicate those other issues. Irredentism is a major factor in all of them. The Balkan region has a sad history of aggravating larger issues. The US and EU should aim to end any possibility of that happening again. Then maybe Vucic and Lajcak could smile not only at each other but also at Kosovo Prime Minister Kurti.