"And who should I talk to?", asked rhetorically and literally Marta Kos, the European Commissioner for Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement, in a conversation with a journalist from the Slovenian N1 a few days ago.
She came under fire from the public in Serbia and Slovenia, especially on social networks, because of the announcement on the X network after the meeting with Vučić on March 17 in Brussels.
"We had a constructive conversation", read a part of the announcement that forced the public to make abusive comments about the Slovenian diplomat who is just making her way through the canyons of the Brussels administration.
So, not only did she not "retract" after the initial assessment of the nature of the meeting with Vučić - two days after the largest protest in the history of Serbia in which the regime used sound weapons - but she also added that if she doesn't talk to him, then she has no one to talk to. And for the EU, it is important for Serbia to be part of it and to end the accession negotiations, i.e. reforms, said Kos... All that rhetoric and how it is known to the citizens of Serbia.
Months ago, students and those who support them have a message that reads: we demand that the institutions work, act, Vučić is not competent, and now they receive a message from the otherwise silent EU that only Vučić can be negotiated with.
A Slap from BRUSSELS
For everyone in Serbia who has been trying and fighting for decades to show that Serbia has a place in the EU and that Serbia is Europe, this attitude of the new commissioner in the EU government led by Ursula von der Leyen was a real slap in the face. Few people had the patience to say, let's see what was said at the meeting, what was it for, were there any other messages... Simply, the very fact that at a critical moment of the protests in Serbia, the EU is hosting Vučić - the man who is at the center of the problem for those who are protesting - was understood as direct support for the President of Serbia and as their acknowledgment that everything is agreed only with him.
A few days after that, Vučić met at a restaurant in Brussels for dinner with Von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, the president of the European Council - a body in which there are representatives of all member states. But this was followed by a cold "tweet" on behalf of the President of the EU Government: in it, Serbia is asked to urgently implement the promised reforms in the field of the media and the electoral system, precisely those areas that are necessary in order to organize as free elections as possible in Serbia.
In the absence of any significant visits by "great statesmen", as was the case last year, for example, Vučić had enough of being received by someone and somewhere in Brussels, to "spit" on Schuman square and send a message here that he is important since everything depends on him. Therefore, all those who say that he is not competent can still do so, but it has nothing to do with what is happening in the realpolitik world.
In addition, Marta Kos explained in the interview that she wanted to "stand out" in front of the critics, that she insisted on the same things as the students. Well, the student's demands coincide with the EU's demand towards Serbia, so her meeting was the preparation of the second one with Von der Leyen and Košt, and the messages from that meeting in the restaurant were very harsh.
Those who know Marta Kos and know the details of the meeting with Vučić say that it was an unpleasant meeting and that Kos sought answers to questions about what is happening in Serbia, but also why the persecution of certain civil society organizations and the media continues.
We can imagine that it wasn't any better at dinner a few days later, when Vucic asked to know when the EU would pay him the first tranche of 160 million euros of aid for the Western Balkans, and the EU asked to see what he had done since December, when he promised that everything would be done by February 2025.
HOW TO DEFEND THE WEST
Vučić as Vučić is playing the card of buying time, believing that he will crush the administration in Brussels because he may not fulfill what he agreed. But why be so formal if you really want to be in the EU? And that bureaucratized to the core and in the gap between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, unprepared to make important decisions about its future.
Vučić sees the EU as a dysfunctional and indecisive institution and tries to get some privileges from it. If it is a couple of hundred million euros of free money per year – full cap. On the other hand, the EU is asking for things to be put in order in Serbia. Like, let's answer at least for a passing grade and we'll give money, as long as you don't cause too many problems in the Balkans.
After that meeting, Vučić, in addition to addressing the local voters, also sent a message that the EU will include the Jadar mine construction project in its strategic documents in the coming days. From this, it can be concluded that he is buying his personal status and the place of the main player with such concessions, even though the majority of Serbia is against that project. He understands that this is well known, but that is precisely why he insists to the "Europeans" that they take him into account, because it is his way of corrupting his partners from the West. In addition, with the same move, he further denigrated the EU in Serbia.
With this, he achieved two points: his rating in the West increases, while the West's rating decreases in Serbia, which is otherwise part of Vučić's strategic policy since he came to power - constant work on destroying public opinion and lowering citizens' desire to be part of the EU.
No one from the EU pays attention to this game of his because, as Marta Kos says, "the citizens of Serbia decide what their government will be." So if that government wants to give the Jadra valley for a mine and not go to the EU - fine. The European Union has no idea what to do with itself and the Balkans, that is, it does not know what to do with less than 20 million people, which is the equivalent of Romania when it entered the EU. For a long time, those in Serbia who think that the country should be a member of the Union believed that something similar to a plan or vision would come from it. And it is now clear to them that there is nothing to it and that only part of the public in the EU and part of the media have some interest in what is happening in Serbia.
To be honest, a larger part of the EU parliament should be added, but that is precisely the part of the public of the member states that would probably understand that the EU needs to be geographically unified and that the Western Balkans, as a central part of geographical Europe, must also be part of the Union. At the beginning of this week, Vučić added to this Brussels excursion a telephone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron and boasted on Instagram, which became the news of the day in all the media that serve his propaganda.
THE POLITICS OF ANGER AND COMPLAINT
While Vučić made a boyish effort to show that he is in charge - and it's not that he can't do it - by announcing an upcoming meeting with Donald Trump, even those who believe that it's no longer his job for a long time didn't have much of an answer. Part of the public tweeted in anger and despair, sent messages to Martha Kos and Ursula von der Leyen, and part of the opposition wrote public letters.
SSP President Dragan Đilas has already made a name for himself with his letters to the EU administration and foreign embassies. And now Marty Kos sent an angry letter, with every right, and anyone could sign that letter. However, nothing is gained from this except a pat on the back, because he did not show that the EU in Serbia has someone to talk to if he does not talk to Vučić. Concretely - that there is an alternative in Serbia and that there are institutions.
The opposition did not even manage to go to Brussels, at least to a restaurant with Marta Kos and Von der Leyen, and to explain that the two of them would have someone to talk to if they came to Serbia. For example, with people from the judiciary, but also with the opposition members themselves. However, disunited and atomized, they still seem to be without a plan and idea, and even as if they have no desire to come together and decide in a unique way on the most important things in Serbia. Every day they give progressives the right to say: "Who if not us, who if not Vučić." And them and Marty Kos.
The dynamics, as always in the last few months, are changed by students with their public attitudes and actions. If Marta Kos and other EU officials will not go to Serbia to see what is happening, the students have decided to go to them in the European Union. On the day of publication of this issue, on Thursday, April 3, a column of students on bicycles set off for Strasbourg, in order to try to explain what is happening in Serbia in one of the EU centers. Strengthened by the constant incredible actions of the whole winter, during which they walked almost all of Serbia, they are now going on a journey through EU member states. Citizens of Serbia and the diaspora help them along the way. The goal of the students is to do something different from powerless statements so that no one hears us.
So if you meet them, support them. Be with them, because they are riding bikes now so that tomorrow they don't all go north en masse, fleeing from savagery, retribution and corruption.
