Thursday

28th Mar 2024

Pro-EU party leads polls in knife-edge Serbia election

Pro-EU reformists are nosing ahead in the latest polls before Serbia's elections on Sunday (21 January) - a pivotal event that could raise prospects of Serbia EU entry and Kosovo independence, or aggravate the risk of renewed ethnic conflict in the heart of modern Europe.

The pro-EU Democratic Party of president Boris Tadic scored 29 percent in a CESID poll on Thursday as campaigning ended ahead of the vote, with prime minister Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia on 19 percent and the nationalist Serbian Radical Party of war crimes indictee Vojislav Seselj on 26 percent, Balkans agency DTT-NET.COM reports.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

The EU's preferred scenario would see Tadic and Kostunica team up with one of the 17 smaller parties, such as the pro-EU G17 Plus faction, to snatch over 50 percent of Belgrade's 250-seat parliament and gradually steer the country toward compliance with the UN war crimes tribunal and a negotiated settlement on Kosovo.

Its worst case scenario could see Kostunica unite with the radicals to block Kosovo independence and the UN war crimes purge, wrecking what's left of Serbia's EU entry talks and provoking Pristina into a unilateral grab at independence that pits ethnic Serbs against ethnic Albanians in a throwback to the bloody 1990s.

About 6.7 million people have registered to vote for 3,795 individual candidates at the country's 8,400 polling stations, with most ballots opening at 07:00 local time and closing at 20:00 on Sunday and with EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday to digest results.

Brussels, Washington and the UN have done what they can to give Mr Tadic a boost coming into the poll: putting off the UN's Kosovo status proposal until after the elections, granting membership in a prestigious NATO scheme last month and even dangling suggestions that EU entry talks could resume before war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic is caught.

"I hope very much [the vote] will produce a government that is pro-European, that supports the values we promote," EU top diplomat Javier Solana said Wednesday in a sign of all-but-open support for Tadic. "A...pro-European government in Belgrade could make rapid progress toward the EU," enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn said the same day.

The more blunt US diplomat Dan Fried said on Thursday "nationalism in that part of the world is like cheap alcohol. First it makes you drunk, then it makes you blind, then it kills you."

"[Yugoslavia] didn't die of natural causes; it was murdered by Milosevic...I'm sorry that happened, but the fact is it's done and we must move on."

Kosovo dominates election

Kosovo has dominated campaigning inside Serbia with Mr Tadic saying he will push to keep the province but "in a European, diplomatic way" while playing up Serbia's EU-related economic recovery since 2004. But Mr Kostunica has plumped for nationalist slogans such as "Long Live Serbia" or "Serbia is too small to be divided."

At street level, news agencies report mixed emotions: "I just wish we could finally move on and be a normal country again...not just better jobs and lower taxes, but a sense of direction, some certainty where we're heading," Dubravka Jelisic, a Belgrade school teacher told AP.

"We don't want a new war here. We want peace and higher standards of living. But we will never agree to an imposed solution over Kosovo," Svetislav Stojmenovic, a restaurateur in Bujanovac, told the BBC.

Whatever happens on Sunday, the real test for new Serbia and the international community will come one or two weeks later when UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari unveils his proposal for a future UN security council resolution on the final status of Kosovo.

Provisional independence on offer

Diplomatic leaks indicate Mr Ahtisaari will offer "provisional independence" with full sovereignty on hold until Pristina meets human rights standards and agrees on decentralised rule with ethnic-Serb enclaves, while an EU envoy and armed EU police force take over power from the UN and NATO during the interim.

The Ahtisaari plan will catapult the Kosovo question onto the geo-political stage, with UN veto power Russia firmly opposed to Kosovo independence and with some EU states such as Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Romania and Slovakia also sympathetic to keeping Serbia intact.

"The election in Serbia is about Europe and the future," Kosovo's ethnic Albanian prime minister and ex-guerrilla fighter Agim Ceku said in the International Herald Tribune on Thursday. "Kosovo's final status will ensure that we seize this historic opportunity, pronounce Kosovo independent and begin a genuine regional push toward the EU."

Ukraine slams grain trade restrictions at EU summit

Restrictions on Ukrainian agricultural exports to the EU could translate into military losses in their bid to stop Russia's war, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky warned EU leaders during their summit in Brussels on Thursday.

Difficult talks ahead on financing new EU defence spending

With the war in Ukraine showing no signs of ending any time soon, EU leaders will meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday (21 and 22 March) to discuss how to boost the defence capabilities of Ukraine and of the bloc itself.

Opinion

Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Rather than assuming a pro-European Labour government in London will automatically open doors in Brussels, the Labour party needs to consider what it may be able to offer to incentivise EU leaders to factor the UK into their defence thinking.

Latest News

  1. Kenyan traders react angrily to proposed EU clothes ban
  2. Lawyer suing Frontex takes aim at 'antagonistic' judges
  3. Orban's Fidesz faces low-polling jitters ahead of EU election
  4. German bank freezes account of Jewish peace group
  5. EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania
  6. 'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told
  7. Moscow's terror attack, security and Gaza
  8. Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis autumn Europalia arts festival is all about GEORGIA!
  2. UNOPSFostering health system resilience in fragile and conflict-affected countries
  3. European Citizen's InitiativeThe European Commission launches the ‘ImagineEU’ competition for secondary school students in the EU.
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersThe Nordic Region is stepping up its efforts to reduce food waste
  5. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  6. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us