Serbia: the EU factor

Serbia is currently pausing for breath in between the first and second rounds of a presidential election.  The issue of the country's EU membership will dominate the interlude.

On Monday, Serbian officials hope EU foreign ministers will agree to sign the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) already initialled with Serbia, boosting Serbia's pro-EU parties in the election run-off on February 3.  Some EU states are not convinced that Serbia is ready for such a mark of approval, pointing in particular to the failure to surrender fugitive Ratko Mladic to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

The presidential race is tight between pro-reform incumbent Boris Tadic and ultra-nationalist Tomislav Nikolic, who is standing for the Radical Party.  In the first round, Nikolic beat Tadic, but in the run-off election, enough voters for other candidates may swing behind the moderate.  Both candidates reject detaching Kosovo from Serbia, but they differ on the impact of Serbia's path towards EU membership.

A recently released Gallup Poll shows that, generally speaking, the majority of Serbs look favourably on the EU.  The problem is, that many Serbs are also convinced that Kosovo is an inalienable part of Serbia.

Emotional tug-of-war?

In the poll, conducted a year ago, 62% of Serbs said they thought EU membership would be a good thing.  Just 9% felt it would be a bad thing.  Asked about the role the EU was playing in the Balkans, 63% had a positive opinion and 48% said they approved of the EU's leadership.

What the poll does not do is ask those surveyed to say which comes first:  Kosovo or the EU.  The second round of the election will show how many Serbs are prepared to forgo EU accession for Kosovo's sake.  The fact that Nikolic has tried to argue that Serbs can in fact have their cake and eat it -- despite the fact that the EU is expected to be a prominent and active sponsor of an independent Kosovo -- suggests that opinion is finely balanced.

An indicator of this is that in the same poll, Serbs said they viewed Russia, which has historical ties with Serbia and has threatened to veto a Western-backed UN Security Council plan for Kosovo's statehood, even more positively:  63% of those polled approved of Russia's leadership.  This is because, in opposing Kosovo's independence, Russia is Serbia's ally.

Thus, the SAA issue comes at a highly sensitive time.  As Serbs go to the polls, they know a vote for Tadic means continuing to move towards EU integration; a Radical victory means that Kosovo is still the determining factor for electors despite the likely relapse into isolation.