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The long debated issue of Serbian accession to the EU is about to come to its essential phase. Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić said that the first chapters of the negotiation documentation would be opened on December 14th. He recalled that Serbia has held the status of a candidate for EU membership since March 2012. Previously, EU officials had elaborated the conditions for the entry of Serbia into the European Union. The main condition is to subjugate its external policy to Brussels and introduce restrictions against Moscow. Another is to recognize that Kosovo is lost forever and, thus, start the process of officially recognizing Kosovo’s independence. While Serbian leadership, in its official rhetoric, tries to avoid giving clear answers to these questions, its course shows that there is no choice. If Serbia wants to continue the process of EU integration, it should accept an anti-Russian stance and abandon Kosovo.
Despite its geopolitical location near the Balkans Rim, Serbia traditionally is the most Continentalist country in the region. It occupies the inner Heartland of the Balkans and has always tried to fulfill the imperial mission of domination in its zone like its brother in Big Heartland – Russia. With all differences aside, the mentality of the people and the histories of Serbia and Russia have two strategically important similarities.
The first is an already mentioned geopolitical position. All Serbian conflicts with its neighbors are provoked not only by ethno-religious causes, but also natural Serbian aspirations to gain access to the sea. Montenegro and Dalmatia are points of main priority in this strategy of Greater Serbia. This is why Western Atlanticist geostrategists supported the partition of Yugoslavia and the creation of independent states of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, forming borders that completely cut Serbia off from the Adriatic coast.
Greater Serbia Project and contemporary borders
The second similarity between Serbia and Russia is that they are both Slavic and Orthodox states. Christian Orthodoxy lies at heart of Serbian identity. Today’s West, both in its traditionalist Catholic and Post-modernist liberal version, is openly hostile to Orthodox faith and its ideology. As an Orthodox continentalist citadel at the Heart of Balkans, Serbia always will be an obstacle to Atlanticist domination in the region.
The strategic aim of the Atlanticist West is not to fulfill all of Serbia’s dreams, but to liquidate the Serbian nation in its current shape and drastically change Serbian identity. It is the reason of continuous fragmentation of Serbian space. It is the reason Serbs have not one, but two Serbian states (The Republic of Serbia and The Republic of Srpska as a part of Confederation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Serbs of Montenegro are schooled that they are not Serbs, but belong to independent “Montenegrian” nation. It is why the separatist movements in Voievodina region and zones populated by Serbian Muslims are supported by Western networks. It is why NATO cut off Kosovo and tries to make Serbia recognize its ‘independence’.
The case of Kosovo is so important because this territory is deemed as essential in terms of Serbian mental geography. It is the birthplace of Serbian statehood and holy land because of its ancient monasteries, and is also the land where the heroic but lost Battle of Kosovo in 1389 took place, where the fate of Serbia was predicted. For Serbs to renounce Kosovo means to renounce their roots and historical identity. And that is what the EU really wants: to reshape Serbian identity, to eliminate its religion-based, imperial dimension and consume it. EU needs a market for its goods, cheap labor, and strategical control in the region, not a Serbian nation. If it changes the ethno-cultural landscape of its core in France and Germany is it interested in Serbs?
The integration into the EU did not bring success to neighboring nations like Hungary, Romania, Croatia, and Bulgaria. It is unlikely that it can seriously positively influence the situation in Serbia. The only argument for being swallowed by the EU is that no viable alternative is proposed whilst EU countries surround Serbia. This is true, but it does not make the possible aftermath of Serbian acceptance to the EU more positive.
At the same time, the EU integration model today is in deep crisis. It is challenged by the sovereigntist forces that defend national identity and oppose mass-migration in the North and by anti-austerity forces in the South of the Union. This may have a resonating effect on Serbia. Serbia has a huge potential for both the euro skeptical trends. This may cause political instability, mass manifestations and popular revolt to result in the deepening of the internal crisis in the EU.
Washington and Brussels are more interested in the process of Serbian integration than its full acceptance. Serbia has to fulfill western requirements and reshape its nature. Integration will be used rather as a dangling carrot, because the meaning of “integration” will change in parallel to the processes of internal changes within the EU. At the end of the process it will mean something different to what pro-Westerners desired in the beginning: neo-colonial status rather than fully legitimate membership.
The imminent steps on the way to acceptance to the EU will provoke a negative reaction from Moscow and internal patriotic forces that may combine to resist attempts to change the country’s geopolitical course. The actions and proactive and responsive measures of the West will cause serious internal crisis in the country.
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