EUobserver.com

EUOBERVER / BRUSSELS – Serbian voters will go to the polls on Sunday (11 May) for what is being billed as decisive elections for the country's EU future.

The main parties in the running are the pro-Western centrists of president Boris Tadic's Democratic Party (DS); the nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) currently led by eurosceptic Tomislav Nikolic, and outgoing prime minister Vojislav Kostunica's conservative Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS).

Polls have been indicating that the DS and SRS emerge neck and neck, but neither would win with a sufficient majority to form a government on its own.

Mr Kostunica's DSS would come third, according to polls, and could then have a decisive role in the formation of the future coalition government.

In a similar scenario last year, the DSS also come third, the DS second and the SRS first. After months of negotiations, a coalition was formed with Mr Tadic's centrists, making Mr Kostunica the country's premier.

The fragile coalition collapsed in March however, following disagreements over Kosovo – which unilaterally declared independence in February – and EU integration, and the subsequent resignation of Mr Kostunica.

While this time the Democrats have excluded forming an alliance with the conservatives, a coalition between the conservatives and the radicals seems increasingly likely.

The EU's fears
This is just the political set-up the EU least favours. It has made no secret of its wish to see the pro-Western forces win Sunday's vote.

After the 27-nation bloc angered Serbia with its reaction to Kosovo's independence -recognised by a majority of EU member states despite Belgrade's strong opposition - it then intensified political signals to show Serbian voters that their future lies with the EU.

Last week, the EU foreign ministers agreed to sign a pre-accession deal with Belgrade – a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) – despite the country's failure to cooperate fully with the UN war crimes tribunal and to arrest remaining war crimes fugitives.

Cooperation with the tribunal has long been a condition for allowing Serbia closer to the EU.

Additionally, 16 EU states on Tuesday (6 May) agreed to make visas for all valid Serb applicants free of charge, and on Wednesday EU justice commissioner Jacques Barrot presented a road map for full visa liberalisation with Serbia.

An unwise strategy?
But these EU attempts to woo Serbian citizens ahead of the elections may not have the results the bloc is hoping for, some observers argue.

Gergana Noutcheva, an analyst with the Brussels-based think tank Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), said the EU move to sign the SAA represented a "political shortcut for purely strategic reasons," but she doubted a possible DS victory would be the result of the signing of this pre-accession deal.

"The DS electorate is already convinced of Serbia's European perspective anyway," while those who would rather vote for the radicals would hardly be seduced by the SAA, Ms Noutcheva said.

Nationalists have been strongly opposed to the signing of the document which Mr Kostunica has called "an act against the state" seeing it as an indirect recognition of Kosovo's independence.

According to the analyst, instead of "picking favourites", the EU should work for building a consensus within the country's political spectrum that EU integration is Serbia's only possible future.

Only then will the process of "Europeanisation" of Serbia be boosted, she concluded.

Serbs go to polls divided over EU path