As Serbia inches forward towards EU membership, its pro-Russian outlook has become more of headache for the country’s ambitious President, Aleksandar Vucic.
On the one hand, Vucic shares the pro-Russian sentiment felt by most Serbs entirely. On the other, Serbia’s reputation as Russia’s biggest fan in Europe has become something of an embarrassment – given Vucic’s determination to ease Serbia into the European fold – and given Europe’s tough line on the Kremlin, post-Crimea.
That explains why, in his recent Financial Times interview on May 15, he was at pains to insist that Serbia would not behave like Russia’s “Trojan Horse” in the EU – and that he had apparently told President Vladimir Putin to his face that EU membership remains Serbia’s top priority.
After the election and change of power in Italy, however, it is questionable whether Serbia will have to downplay its Russian connections so much.
The presence in the new Italian government of the far-right, pro-Russian League is the important factor here.
League leader Matteo Salvini, Italy’s new Interior Minister, has made no secret of his pro-Russian sympathies.
On the campaign trail, he described continued EU sanctions on Moscow as an act of “insanity’, calling Russia a “friendly neighbour” – and, echoed Hungary’s Viktor Orban word for word by claiming that the real problem in Europe was not Russia but illegal immigration and militant Muslims.
The League, of course, is not the only party in Italy’s new government, or even the senior partner; that role goes to Five Star.
Still, a new government in Rome containing the League will clearly be friendlier to Moscow and less biddable to Brussels than its centre-left predecessor – which can only be good news for those countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans that cherish ties with Moscow and chafe against the sanctions regime.
Meanwhile, as Europe’s eyes are concentrated anxiously on Italy, another less important election, but also close to home as far as the Balkans is concerned, may confirm the tilt in Europe towards the Kremlin.
Little Slovenia goes to the polls on Sunday in an election that is tipped to see right-winger Janez Jansa returned to power.
Jansa’s Slovene Democratic Party is well ahead of centrist and leftist rivals in the latest polls, though with some 40 per cent of voters still undecided, there is everything to play for.
If Jansa does become Slovenia next leader, however, another brick in Europe’s anti-Russian wall will have loosened, given Jansa’s close ties to Hungary’s Orban, whose hostility to EU sanctions on Russia is a given.
For more read the full of article at The Balkaninsight
