Serbia and the EU: the geopolitical implications On 25 October the Foreign Ministers of the European Union have thawed the request of Serbia Belgrade aimed at integrating into the system. The membership application was submitted by the government last year Tadic, as a first step closer to the path of full integration. I am therefore matches, in effect, the diplomatic negotiations between the Commission, 27 members and Belgrade. Two key issues on the table: the first, obvious and declared by the Union, is the unconditional support of Serbia to the International Tribunal in The Hague for the capture and conviction of the National General Radko Mladic and Goran Hadzic. The second, placed under the table because of the English and greek veto, is the recognition of Kosovo. Two matters of great weight to a country already ravaged and humiliated like Serbia.
On both President Boris Tadic, leader of the coalition-European, is in danger of losing his already slight degree of consensus, because on the one hand, in parliament, can only take into account the wishes of the Party Serbian Socialist, was the same as that of Milosevic, and now is the balance of the liberal coalition on the other, on the other side of the recognition of the independence of Kosovo, Tadic faces a genuine popular uprising and the final political defeat. Knows Tomislav Nikolic, leader of the Nationalist Party, released the 2008 presidential loser to a handful of votes, after a ballot among the most discussed in the recent life 'democratic' country.
is in this context that we must enter the clashes last September, held in Belgrade at the gay-pride and in Italy, in Genoa, for the qualifying match between the two national . In both cases, the fringes of Serbian nationalism have openly expressed their intention to boycott any opening 'liberal' and made by the European government.
A government that had won the presidential and parliamentary elections of 2008 in the wake of envy Serbian historians "neighbors", Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU recently. Just the fear of a disastrous economic backwardness compared to the area of \u200b\u200bEastern Europe that opened with the aid of Brussels, Tadic had made it possible to reach the presidency and impose a pro-European coalition government.
But the demands of Brussels now bring Belgrade with their backs to the wall, to really get around in the EU, Tadic has split the country, isolate the Serb half of the instances that we recognize and accept the conservative what is a Serb Orthodox secularly unacceptable: the unilateral independence of Kosovo. A cultural choice, strategic and geopolitical absolutely radical, indicative of important consequences.
Between Europe and Russia
Serbia has always been a region of fault is a boundary between Eastern and Western Europe, including Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, even used to the dual use of the Cyrillic and Latin. And yet, from the Ottoman rule came to an end of the historic battle of the Plains of Kosovo (the epic resistance of the Serb Islamic Army cavalry in 1389), its national identity has taken shape in terms Eurasian going to represent that body of union between the Latin and Orthodox world, including Europe and Russia, north of Pristina Sacrifice for freedom from external enemy.
That is why the Kosovo issue can not be exclusively related to an ethnic and religious clashes, a mere nationalist legacy: the Battle of the Plain of Kosovo, and then Kosovo, the Serbs became the symbol of historical identity and therefore, factually, geopolitics. Only taking into account this element of continuity that makes Serbia limes of Europe, not just hinge between east and west, you can analyze the current international issues related to Belgrade.
Towards Brussels
are therefore easy to understand the relationships that drive Serbian institutions in Europe to enter counts. These are cultural, legitimacy, identity, as mentioned, especially related to the common battle that has seen civil Vienna win if Belgrade had failed.
course, are also historical, as Belgrade linked to double-locked to the events imperial Austro-Hungarian as a natural area of \u200b\u200binterest and control Germanic, with all feelings of revenge and acceptance that this involves.
But all this should be the fundamental factor, the economic one. As reiterated by many analysts, the Union eruopea continues to be a purely economic phenomenon. Not at all political. Indeed, it continues to represent the vitality of German production (the old area of \u200b\u200bthe enlarged Marco), tempered by the needs of agriculture and scenic French.
It is only natural that this last factor, duplicates the previous, push Serbia to Brussels, without much concern about the fact in itself, seen in Belgrade as an inescapable macro-regional contingency, with no real geopolitical consequences of cash but rich in opportunity. It also testifies to the political attitude of Nikolic, the leader of nationalist opposition, which never used to Brussels tones clear and irreversible closure.
Towards Moscow
But Serbia is also the home of Orthodox monasteries. The Serbian resistance to Ottoman domination was orthodox resistance. The identity Serbia, in relation to the inner area of \u200b\u200bthe Balkans is clearly Slavic. The use of the Cyrillic alphabet, even if accompanied by the Latin alphabet, remember that stretch east from Byzantium that comes up in Moscow. The same Serbian flag once again the same colors of the Russian Federation.
As with other regions of Eastern Europe, therefore, even Serbia is culturally tied to Russia. But what matters most is linked to it politically and strategically. It is Russia that needs international support to Belgrade, and Moscow was in 2008 within the UN Security Council, to impose restrictive amendments to the EULEX mission, supported by the United States and the European Union with the intent to foster the independence of Kosovo. And it's always Russia that, in the original project of South Stream gas pipeline , Serbia to ensure a vital economic role.
From this point of view is quite clear that Belgrade can not do without the support of the great mother of orthodoxy, macro-regional power today.
geopolitical
The poles Serbia's EU entry once again reveal the whole political inconsistency of the Old Continent. Rather than step approach, of Belgrade are further evidence of atonement. Whether support for the Hague tribunal, the independence of Kosovo, rather than referring to the needs of peace-European stages are placed in continuity with the U.S. intervention and ally of the '90s.
Since these facts, it is clear that Serbia's future remains closely linked with international games taking place. Moscow will have no objection to entry of an ally 'of society and culture', as happened to the other realities of the East, until the European Union will maintain its low concrete policy.
That is, until Brussels will be nothing but a customs union and monetary policy unable to develop an identity of its political and strategic. Indeed, Russia's Vladimir Putin has already demonstrated the ability to seek dialogue with those continental realities more open multilateral scenario. See Germany, for strictly economic reasons. And Italy, through a politico-strategic relationship already more structured, focused on the South Stream project , which could be important Balkan equilibrium.
There are two aspects that are of concern, however, Moscow. The first fact is the close relationship between the EU and NATO. From 2004 to 2009, the development of the process of European integration has coincided with the Atlantic alliance inputs of most states of the former Warsaw Pact. If this occurs also for Serbia, encircling the western Russian power would be not only military strategy, but almost symbolic. For Moscow would mean goodbye to the hegemonic pretensions in the Orthodox world and the cutting, once again, the link with the myth of the Third Rome.
Other Now you just called Ankara, Istanbul or better. In a multipolar, Turkey had become a target of Southern very real partnership for Putin. It should be noted that the South Stream project , as opposed to Euro-American Nabucco By 2009 just in Turkey provides a vital hub. If the EU, NATO and the UN were to ever integrate in Serbia itself, a symbol of the difficulties of the relationship between European and Muslim world, the prelude to a realignment turkish, desired by all European institutional environment, it is rather clear . To the disappointment of Moscow, surrounded to the east and south.
From this point of view, the loss of Belgrade and the independence of Kosovo would represent a significant precedent for Russia aimed at the disintegration of European Orthodox and the definitive inclusion of Muslim reality and central Asia Minor (Chechnya at all) in the U.S. geopolitical framework. Once again, Belgrade will be the center of global interests ready to clash.
* James Petrella has a doctorate in International and Diplomatic Sciences (University degli Studi di Genova)
