How Europe's Favorite Autocrat Became Vuchchi

The president of the European Federation of Journalists, Mogens Blitzer Bjelengard, has mentioned Serbia as the state with the worst violations of media freedom in the Balkans. However, EU officials, such as Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for European Policy of Neighborship and Enlargement, have not hesitated to close their eyes until Vuciqi violates the European “”. Austria's new Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, in one case had described as “the pillar of stability”, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel has recently told Vuciqi that “we are impressed how successful Serbia is on its path to reforms”. Their silence over his antidemocratic behavior is deafening

A long-time British Chamber of Lords report complaints that the European Union has selected “stability on democratic values” in the Western Balkans, while expressing “serious concern that achieved in the direction of good governance and rule of law are at risk of losing, as countries in the region are returning to authoritarian leadership”.

As ironic as it may be for a non-resolved institution, such as the Chamber of Lords, to complain about democratic values, the authors of the report are right: the majority of post-Yugoslav governments have become <x0-95rocracy” instead of democracys, and nowhere does that seem to be more than in Serbia.

Since returning to the government in 2012, after a 12-year-old opposition, Aleksandar Vuciqi has gone up methodically Serbia's political ladders, being established by the defence minister in prime minister to take the presidency to the end, which happened during last spring. President Vuciq is a reformed ultranationalist who has served as Minister of Information Slobodan Milosevic in the last days of the Yugoslavia wars, a role involving the fine of journalists, which criticised the regime and the ban on non-friendly television networks. Over the past few years, he has been leading during a period of dangerous democratic setback. His centre-right Serbian Progressive Party has full control of the Serbian government, judiciary and security services, until it has neutralised local media on that scale that only a small number of them have had the courage to publicise substantial accusations of corruption, nepotism and voter intimidation, present while in power.

During the past six years, Vuciqi has decided what could be described as a mild autism. Serbia is still democratic society with free elections on paper and a political opposition, with which the dissatisfied are able to criticise the ruling party, without fearing that they will disappear mysteriously. But Vuciqi's control with power centres in Serbia is so complete and the democratic process is so distorted that discontent does not pose a danger to his power.

His political opponents are free to compete against him, but have few tools to make their voices hear. State institutions are so controlled by Vuciki's allies that there is nothing to stop him from rejecting democratic norms.

Such a thing is mostly noted in the media. Vuchchiqi has managed to suppress the press by controlling their main source of income - advertising. Most advertising agencies in this country are owned by little media magnates, who are loyal to Vuchiki and who, instead of basing budgets on market factors, buy space from television stations and newspapers, giving the president favourable coverage and not giving funds to those who criticize him.

The media are also stimulated to support the pro-government line: RTV Pink, the largest private state broadcaster, has accepted at least sevenm euros in loans from the government between 2014 and 2016. According to Dubravka Valiq-Nedelkovic, professor of media studies at Novi-Sadi University, when Vuciqi ran for president in 2017, Pink turned the favor, covering it 267 times more than all other opponents combined. Although few newspapers or television stations function as direct government spokespersons, most avoid difficult questions.

Those who try to force their leaders to render an account often find their bank accounts blocked by tax authorities until they are put under investigation for alleged financial irregularities. “Danas”, a popular independent newspaper, has lost so many ads that the newspaper now goes to 24 pages instead of 32 pages ordinary, although it offers the best advertising space on the market. Journalists, who have been stinging in their criticism of the president, have been questioned by BIA, the Serbian state intelligence agency, on unusual charges, such as blackmail and sex trafficking.

In an interview for Radio Free Europe in October 2017, European Federation of Journalists President Mogens Blerregarde has mentioned Serbia as the country with the worst violations of media freedom in the Balkans. However, EU officials, such as Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for European Policy of Neighborship and Enlargement, have not hesitated to close their eyes until Vuciqi violates the European “”, which they supposedly love so much.

Austria's new Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, in one case, had described as “a pillar of stability”, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel has recently told Vuciqi that “we are impressed how successful Serbia is on its path to reforms”. Their silence over his antidemocratic behavior is deafening.

While Serbia remains outside the European Union, Brussels is able to separate itself from Vuciki's strange behaviour. Unlike Victor Orban's nonliberal democracy in Hungary, Serbia's mild autocratic is not a stain in Europe.

Vuciqi may be a weak representative for the European project, but Brussels can rely on him for advancing its geostrategic goals in the Balkans.

Indeed, Vuciqi offers stability in a troubled region, until it has successfully monitored a number of austerity measures by the International Monetary Fund, for reducing Serbia's debt and budget deficits, cutting public sector wages and pensions, which are part of a broader restructuring of the Serbian economy, in order to meet EU criteria for enlargement.

Despite its deficits in democracy, Vuciqi is relatively moderated according to Serbian political standards, until his dominance in state policy ensures ethnic chauvinists, such as Vojislav Seshel, former Sev. Milosevic's prime minister, who had spent 11 years in trial at The Hague, facing charges of crimes against humanity, remains marginalised. He is moving in the right direction around Kosovo until he has recently declared that “we must live and successfully co-operate”. The normalisation of reports between Serbia and Kosovo, which will pave the way for recognition at the end of its independence, is the EU's top priority in the Balkans.

EU officials are reluctant to put too much pressure on Vuciqi so that he does not look to the East. The Serbian president maintains close ties with the Kremlin, while some of his local critics have accused him of exploiting that report against Brussels. Vuciqi insists that, unlike neighbouring Montenegro, Serbia will never join NATO, until it has refused to follow the example of Western powers in imposing sanctions on Russia.

The reason is the strong prorus feeling in Serbia: The two states are united by Orthodox faith and Slavic heritage. Serbia will not change its policies... and will not impose sanctions on Russia”, Vuciqi has said, after a long-time meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. In June 2017, just a day after Montenegro's NATO membership, Serbian troops took part in a joint military maneuver with Russia and Belarus, near the border with Poland, until the Serbian Army later that year accepted a donation of six combat planes from Moscow, which has also promised 30 tanks and 30 cars.

Serbia's efforts to get well with both sides have not been very well accepted in Washington. The democratic conventioner in Texas, Eddie Bernice Johnson, had written a letter to US Vice President Mike Pence, urging him not to meet Vuciqiqi, during his visit to the United States by the middle of 2017, until Hoyt Brian Yee, who recently resigned as US deputy secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, had told Serbian officials during the past year that the country “could not sit in two chairs at the same time, especially if they are too far apart from each other<1> Yee has also expressed fears that a humanitarian centre, led by the Russians, in the vicinity of Nis, could serve as a spying base -- a charge that from the Russians has been dismissed as absurd.

Vuciqi's approach to Moscow is largely rhetorical in order to reconcile the Russofils to his party and the wide electorate. In spite of his stance, Serbia's military, however, has participated in 13 maneuvers with NATO, or its member states in 2017, seven of which were with the US, until some experts argue that the state acts as a NATO member. Ties with NATO are a topic the Serbian government wants to avoid at any cost: Hatred against the military alliance continues to be widespread in Serbia, which was bombed for three months by NATO forces in 1999.

When Putin urged Vuciqi to grant diplomatic status to the Russian staff in the aforementioned humanitarian centre, he responded cautiously, dragging the issue and ignoring the most vocal pro-Kremlin voices in his cabinet until the issue was silenced. The EU buys nearly ten times more Serbian exports than Russia and Dimitar Bechev, senior non-resident associate at the Atlantic Council's Eurasian Centre tells “Foreign Policy “that “with all the noise of connection with Moscow, the Serbian economy and, to a scale, society are deeply integrated with the EU”. Vuciqi is aware, as Bechev argues of <x4 billion billion from EU funds, which benefit member states and nurture customer policy. He wants it, though it is not an exemplary democrat, which supports EU values”.

Even if Serbia's president is aware of this, the state remains dependent on Russia for oil and gas. Russian energy giant, “Gazprom” has a majority stake in the Serbian state oil company, while Serbia can at the same time become part of the Turkstream gas pipeline.

The fact that Serbia stands firm on European path, however, poses no problem for Moscow: Vuciqi's prorus feelings are real, until its support of Orban and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras would benefit the Kremlin within the EU.

Serbia in the EU represents benefits for Russia; they do not expect more”, Bechev says. “Status quea ʹ political ties plus economic co-operation match Moscow”.

EU tolerance for Vuciqi can be pragmatic on the political side and an easy way to preserve stability in the Balkans, but it is also deeply cynical. Indeed, the EU is ruining its moral authority. Throughout the continent, people are losing confidence in the European project and this frustration does not come only from the populist right: British leftists promote the merits of a progressive Brexit, until Greece's harsh treatment from the bloc during the Eurozone crisis has given its critics reason and has tested the faith of pan-European idealists. In the previous parliamentary elections in Italy, two Eurosceptic parties, the “Five Stars” and “Liga” have won together about 48 per cent of the vote. Anemic growth prevents the bloc from being effectively protected on economic grounds, and through the support of corrupt authoritarians such as Vuciqi, Brussels gives weight to accusations that the EU and its defenders are actually not protecting anything.

Even so, Europe has little right to give speeches to Putins, Orbans, Erdogans and the world's Kaczynskis about their democratic failures, if it is prepared to support someone like Vuciqi. The increasingly large gap between the words and the works of the EU could turn into a strong weapon of populists who, if anything else, at least act the way they speak.