The US government is proceeding with its “strategic dialogue” with Serbia tomorrow. This is in the runup to a Serbian presidential and parliamentary election, which President Vucic has said will occur in the next three or four months. He himself intends to resign before the election. He is term-limited and cannot run again but is widely expected to support a candidate who will invite him to form a government as prime minister. This is the gimmick Vladimir Putin used to stay in power in 2008-12. The Americans are giving Vucic and his gimmick a boost.
The agenda for the strategic dialogue supposedly includes:
The Americans will be looking for transactions that can tie Serbia more closely to the US. This is a carbon copy of the Biden Administration efforts, which focused on lithium deposits. The most important item will likely be an effort to get Serbia to import American liquified natural gas (LNG). That would help loosen Serbian dependence on Russian gas. No doubt the Americans will also be looking for Serbia to buy more defense materiel from the US as well as use US artificial intelligence tools.
Serbia is expert at offering the Americans half a loaf. Vucic has already made a quick trip to Kyiv for a photo op with Ukrainian President Zelensky, in connection with a Southeast Europe/Ukraine meeting. He refused however to sign on to the statement from that meeting, as it called for tightened sanctions.
The photoop may still give Serbia a boost with some in Washington. Even the White House seems keen on Zelensky these days, as the Ukrainians appear to be winning.
As is often the case with diplomatic events, the real significance of this meeting is what is not on the agenda. Vucic’s turn towards autocracy is nowhere to be seen. The Americans won’t complain about Serbia’s declining rankings on governance and rule of law. Nor will they complain about corruption. If they do, the Serbian delegation will just stare back. Or maybe even hint that an American administration that is attacking democracy and committing blatant corruption at home should forget it elsewhere.
Kosovo isn’t on the agenda either. The Americans might I suppose complain about a Serbian minister’s public statement that she would have ethnic cleansed Albanians from Kosovo in 1998. Certainly past American administrations–Republican and Democratic–would have expected her to be fired before the Serbian delegation arrived in Washington. But they are unlikely to demand that Vucic’s friend and advisor who has admitted to organizing a terrorist attack in northern Kosovo be turned over to the judiciary Serbia once recognized as legitimate for trial.
Nor is Europe on the agenda. In the past, the Americans have always supported EU membership for all the Balkan countries. No more. This Administration regards the EU–the US’s largest trading partner in goods and services combined–as an adversary, not a collaborator.
It is hard to miss the implications. The US is no longer a reliable promoter of democracy and rule of law. It is prepared to trade that for LNG sales. If someone at the White House or State Department disagrees, they can prove me wrong: issue a clear statement taking Belgrade to task for its declining commitments to democracy, rule of law, peace with Kosovo, and meeting the qualifications for EU membership.
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