Serbia has (also) voted: domestic and foreign policy assessment

The Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade (IFAT) held a roundtable discussion entitled “Serbia has (also) voted: domestic and foreign policy assessment” on April 7, 2022. Participants included IFAT Research fellows, Julianna Ármás and Ferenc Németh, and Tibor Ördögh, Associate professor of the National University of Public Service. The conversation was moderated by Cintia Viola, Assistant research fellow of IFAT.

In the first part of the panel discussion, participants reviewed Serbian domestic and foreign policy developments that had an impact on the outcome of the 2022 Serbian parliamentary, presidential elections as well as on the local elections in Belgrade.

As due to the boycott of the opposition, the 2020 elections brought an overwhelming majority to the Serbian Progressive Party (Srpska napredna stranka, SNS), Aleksandar Vučić, President of Serbia announced as early as 2 years ago that snap parliamentary elections would be held in 2022. The SNS had to face several domestic and foreign policy challenges over the two years its government. The experts underlined the particular attention given to the environment in domestic policy, that culminated in the Rio Tinto case. Lithium mining -related pollution caused a series of protests in Serbia, which led to the strengthening of the green parties, so they ran together in the Moramo political coalition. Interestingly, however, around ​​the planned mine the SNS received also the majority of votes during the elections. As lithium is a valuable element in electric car manufacturing and is rare in Europe, the implementation of the currently suspended construction could have great economic potential for Serbia in the future. The COVID-19 epidemic also played a key role during the two-year cycle, placing a significant burden on both the social and economic systems. Even so Serbia was the country in the region that produced the best results in terms of GDP growth.From a foreign policy point of view, Serbia has pursued a shuttlecock policy, maintaining good relations with both Russia and China as counter-poles to the European Union (EU). The Ukrainian-Russian war significantly affected the elections, leading to the rise of extremist parties. Although Serbia has not imposed the EU’s sanctions on Russia, it has adopted the UN General Assembly’s Resolution. However, the ruling party did not stand as clearly in favour of Russia as the far-right parties that successfully used Vučić’s shuttlecock policy and the war to get into the Skupština.Participants agreed that the next cycle of domestic and foreign policy events is likely to continue and to be dominated by the pandemic situation and the economic difficulties caused by the war, the prospects for regional and EU integration, and a possible change of great power influence in Serbia. At the regional level, the Open Balkan initiative, which aims to extend the principle of four freedoms, would strengthen Serbia’s influence. However, the future of regional initiatives is questioned by the fact that the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue initiated in order to resolve the relations between Serbia and Kosovo has still not yielded any results, which was also reflected in the problems surrounding the Serbian elections. Kosovo Serbs were not allowed to vote on the territory of Kosovo, despite the intervention of EU Special Representative Miroslav Lajčak. In the process of joining the European Union, only Serbia was able to move forward in the region, as Cluster 4 was opened last year. Although the EU also expected Serbia to impose sanctions on Russia in the first phase of the occupation of Ukraine, this kind of expectation might diminish over time. Thus, it is questionable in what direction Vučić will move towards Russia after the formation of the government, given the fundamentally stagnant state of EU integration.The Russian-Ukrainian war could bring about a major reorganization in the region, as although China’s political role vis-à-vis Russia is lagging behind in Serbia, it cannot be said economically. By the end of 2021, Chinese investment has exceeded 3 billion euros, while loans have exceeded 8 billion euros. During the COVID-19 epidemic, China provided significant assistance to Serbia in terms of both medical equipment and vaccines. Its economic influence and the consequences of the Ukrainian-Russian war could give China a significant advantage over Russia in Serbia.The Serbian Progressive Party, which received the most votes in the parliamentary elections– 120 seats–will have to form a government in this domestic and foreign policy situation and find a coalition partner to secure the 126 seats needed majority. This is likely to be happen, as before, with the Socialist Party of Serbia (Socijalistička partija Srbije, SPS) and with the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (Vajdasági Magyar Szövetség, VMSZ), even though the Socialists have lost significant positions in government after the previous elections. It is questionable what conditions the traditionally pro-Russian SPS  will thus impose on the formation of a coalition government. For the time being, however, the SNS has no interest in forming a coalition with the extremist parties that have re-entered the parliament.At the end of the discussion, the experts briefly mentioned that in addition to the parliamentary elections, presidential elections were also held in Serbia, where Aleksandar Vučić won the absolute majority in the first round. As Serbian law allows the position of the president to be filled up to twice in consecutive terms by the same person, an amendment to the constitution will be needed for Vučić to run for the third time. The amendment to the constitution breaks the way terms of office are calculated, so the Serbian president can run for office again.

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