Meanwhile In Balkans...

[ink]

11 minutes ago, Perun said:

 

Not meaning to be dismissive of Mr Mujanović's hyberbole Here but the videos appear to show a single wheeled APC driving around. Hardly the same as deploying multiple APCs around the town. I find it hard to imagine the local population being terrorised by what we've seen in these two videos.

But also, given how foolishly controversial the UN vote has become (or been made to seem, by Balkan media outlets), perhaps heightening security measures might not be a bad idea.

Anyway, if it turns out I'm wrong, and the Bosnian Serb leadership are really trying to provoke trouble, I shan't be surprised. They're a pack of idiots, the lot of them.

[bojan]

Wahhabi convert attacked police security in front of Israeli embassy in Belgrade with pistol crossbow, shooting one of the security into neck. Security (from Gendarmerie) returned fire with a handgun killing attacker.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/attacker-wounds-police-officer-guarding-israels-embassy-serbia-111541244

 

[ink]

Serbian policeman shot dead by (according to reports) Kosovo Albanian gunman. The Serbian interior minister has already called the incident a terrorist attack. 

The gunman is still at large.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/serbian-police-searching-assailant-shot-killed-1-police-112055372

... Although, in my opinion, it is much more likely to be linked to organised crime.

 

Edited July 18, 2024 by ink

[bojan]

People, drugs, guns smuggling most likely. Illegal loggers are not known for shooting at police.

[alejandro_]

Nazi wreck pulled from Danube after 80 years
21 more ships are to be salvaged in the coming months

https://www.bild.de/news/ausland/gefaehrliche-bergung-nazi-wrack-nach-80-jahren-aus-donau-gezogen-66b48131b0c2de696a0d96c1

[ink]

Just sharing for the sake of it (i.e. this is not an endorsement of the content):

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/09/06/serbia-europe-proxy-war-00177604

 

[Stefan Kotsch]

4 hours ago, ink said:

Just sharing for the sake of it (i.e. this is not an endorsement of the content):

This is very interesting to read. But does this opinion also reflect the opinion of the Serbs and in what proportion of the entire electorate?

[ink]

49 minutes ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

This is very interesting to read. But does this opinion also reflect the opinion of the Serbs and in what proportion of the entire electorate?

Not sure which opinion you mean exactly. I feel like the article expresses several.

At any rate, it's a thankless task trying to gauge Serbian public opinion since polling on political matters tends to be rather unreliable, and fair elections have been something of a rarity.

[Stefan Kotsch]

10 minutes ago, ink said:

Not sure which opinion you mean exactly.

Well, I assessed that the tenor was towards the EU. I am surprised that the opposition complains that it has been ignored by the West. That would be a completely different assessment than, for example, in the Ukraine case.

And I don't fully understand the assessment that Serbia  wants to join the EU, but the EU shows no interest. In particular, I am surprised that Serbia is not taking voluntarily any steps to meet the inclusion criteria. That would be a great recommendation. Or are the criteria already met? Which I don't believe at the moment.

[ink]

16 minutes ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

Well, I assessed that the tenor was towards the EU. I am surprised that the opposition complains that it has been ignored by the West. That would be a completely different assessment than, for example, in the Ukraine case.

The Serbian opporistion are indeed being ignored by the West (and by most of the population of Serbia), because all of the needs of various Western players are being met by the current government (or regime, if you will). That's different to Ukraine because the government there was starting to show rather a pro-Russian bent. That's not the case in Serbia.

16 minutes ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

And I don't fully understand the assessment that Serbia  wants to join the EU, but the EU shows no interest.

The EU lost interest in Serbia becoming a member quite some time ago - probably even before the Brexit 'crisis'. Not sure exactly why. But for a while now it's been the case that the process of accession has stalled.

16 minutes ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

In particular, I am surprised that Serbia is not taking voluntarily any steps to meet the inclusion criteria.

Serbia can and does meet some of the inclusion criteria, but there increasingly little pressure (or incentive) for the government to continue this process - especially when it comes to areas that are foreign to them (rule of law, separation of powers, that kind of thing). This is mostly because there is no light at the end of the tunnel in this process. The carrot has gone rotten.

16 minutes ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

Or are the criteria already met? Which I don't believe at the moment.

They are not. Not in their entirety. Although, it should go without saying that Serbia is much much further down that road than, say, Ukraine... So any talk of Ukraine joining the EU can only be pure gruff.

 

[Stefan Kotsch]

@ink Thank you for the interesting background information.

[old_goat]

2 hours ago, ink said:

The EU lost interest in Serbia becoming a member quite some time ago - probably even before the Brexit 'crisis'. Not sure exactly why. But for a while now it's been the case that the process of accession has stalled.

Be glad for it. There arent any advantages for being in the EU anymore. Once it began as an economical alliance, now it became a fully political one, EU looks more and more like a dictatorship. A woke, marxist far left one. 

[Yama]

6 hours ago, ink said:

The EU lost interest in Serbia becoming a member quite some time ago - probably even before the Brexit 'crisis'. Not sure exactly why. But for a while now it's been the case that the process of accession has stalled.

They are not. Not in their entirety. Although, it should go without saying that Serbia is much much further down that road than, say, Ukraine... So any talk of Ukraine joining the EU can only be pure gruff.

EU really does not want new members right now, whatever else it says*. The Union is too much of a mess as it is and sorting the issues with even more countries would only become more painful. Actually if it could, it would probably divest itself from some countries already in.

*except Norway, they would love to have Norway and all their sweet sweet monies.

Ukraine is an agricultural giant, and agricultural policies are among the most sensitive and complicated matters EU regulates. Current subsidy system would not work at all with Ukraine, so it would have to be comprehensively fixed; a Herculean task nobody really wants to get started with. That alone probably keeps Ukraine out for quite some time, regardless of anything else.

Edited September 11, 2024 by Yama

[Stefan Kotsch]

10 hours ago, old_goat said:

There arent any advantages for being in the EU anymore.

Everyone is free to leave the EU. But no one wants that anymore. So it's a pretty complicated matter.

[ink]

8 hours ago, Yama said:

EU really does not want new members right now, whatever else it says*. The Union is too much of a mess as it is and sorting the issues with even more countries would only become more painful. Actually if it could, it would probably divest itself from some countries already in.

*except Norway, they would love to have Norway and all their sweet sweet monies.

Ukraine is an agricultural giant, and agricultural policies are among the most sensitive and complicated matters EU regulates. Current subsidy system would not work at all with Ukraine, so it would have to be comprehensively fixed; a Herculean task nobody really wants to get started with. That alone probably keeps Ukraine out for quite some time, regardless of anything else.

My feeling is that some in the EU would be happy to see Serbia as a member, but the vast majority of the interest groups are perfectly happy with the status quo - the business interests are more than taken care of under the current arrangement and (legally and politically) it would be a major headache to admit Serbia with it's crappy adherence to the rule of law, undemocratic government, Kosovo, and Russian influence*.

Yes, there is Russian influence but please ignore what you read in the papers - Serbia is very far (lightyears away, you could say) from being "Putin's last ally in Europe" or whatever they like to write in their lazily researched articles.

As for the current regime, it is very close to the West. It was brought to power through backroom deals with Merkel and the Americans, the president still relies heavily on a team of foreign advisors (American, German, and Israeli, by all accounts) for his foreign affairs, and there isn't much wiggle room outside of that relationship. What room there is/was was used to avoid a sanctions regime against Moscow, which would have been an economic shot in the foot for Serbia, given that the Russians own the national oil company and supply all of Serbia's natural gas (though the latter of those two is now changing).

 

 

* And if Serbia (after more than a decade of opening chapters of the Acquis and jumping through EC hoops) is too much of a headache, you can only imagine, I'm sure, what a shit show Ukraine would be in any accession process.

[Ssnake]

16 hours ago, ink said:

The EU lost interest in Serbia becoming a member quite some time ago

Not specifically Serbia; the EU has become somewhat self-absorbed in the recent years (and frankly, does the EU need more members like Orban's Hungary, is a question that many leading politicians will ask themselves). As a result, accession negotiations have basically stalled on all fronts. There's only so much political energy to go around when deciding on priorities, and all the different crises in the past 15 years have largely consumed that energy at the expense of further expansion.

[ink]

3 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

Not specifically Serbia; the EU has become somewhat self-absorbed in the recent years (and frankly, does the EU need more members like Orban's Hungary, is a question that many leading politicians will ask themselves). As a result, accession negotiations have basically stalled on all fronts. There's only so much political energy to go around when deciding on priorities, and all the different crises in the past 15 years have largely consumed that energy at the expense of further expansion.

Yeah, I see all that. It's one of those shit storms that builds slowly and then... Well, we'll see. Maybe I'm wrong.

Anyway, the EU could have had a pretty different Serbia with the (mildly incompetent and slightly corrupt) 2008-2012 government, but they chose a different path. Merkel and the Americans threw their weight behind Vučić in 2012, and built their very own little Orban on Europe's doorstep.

[old_goat]

On 9/12/2024 at 8:45 AM, Stefan Kotsch said:

Everyone is free to leave the EU. But no one wants that anymore. So it's a pretty complicated matter.

Most hungarians would definitely leave the EU. Problem is that regime doesnt want that, simply because they got rich from stolen EU money. 

[ink]

58 minutes ago, old_goat said:

Most hungarians would definitely leave the EU. Problem is that regime doesnt want that, simply because they got rich from stolen EU money. 

Most polls (to be taken with large doses of salt, but still) indicate that a majority of Serbia's citizens are also now against joining the EU. Not that they get a say in it anyway.

[Stefan Kotsch]

57 minutes ago, ink said:

Most polls (to be taken with large doses of salt, but still) indicate that a majority of Serbia's citizens are also now against joining the EU

As already mentioned above. The Serbian government's zigzag policy has probably cooled the interest of the EU states at some point.

It was Titov's policy to smile at everyone in a friendly manner, but not to seek stable relationships.
You have to be realistic about the fact that adopted traditions don't really change overnight.

Let the Hungarians go. In God's name ...

Edited September 13, 2024 by Stefan Kotsch

[ink]

1 hour ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

As already mentioned above. The Serbian government's zigzag policy has probably cooled the interest of the EU states at some point.

In my opinion, that's the wrong way round to look at it. The Serbian government does what it's told by the EU (or rather, Germany), so it must be the EU that's zigzagging. And why wouldn't it? There's no appetite for enlargement (especially after Brexit and COVID and the Ukraine war) and it's already getting everything it needs from Serbia. The status quo suits the EU just fine - especially given the headaches I mentioned above.

 

1 hour ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

It was Titov's policy to smile at everyone in a friendly manner, but not to seek stable relationships.
You have to be realistic about the fact that adopted traditions don't really change overnight.

Given Serbia's situation, being friendly with everyone is literally the only worthwhile path. If there was another one on offer - like full EU membership, that might be worth going after, but no one's offering that anyway.

1 hour ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

Let the Hungarians go. In God's name ...

I have a feeling they're going nowhere. As Old Goat says, Orban's government is addicted to nicking EU handouts (as is Vučić's - they're just much smaller handouts).

[glenn239]

5 hours ago, ink said:

Most polls (to be taken with large doses of salt, but still) indicate that a majority of Serbia's citizens are also now against joining the EU. 

That's surprising.  Why is that?

[ink]

6 hours ago, glenn239 said:

That's surprising.  Why is that?

I'm surprised that you're surprised.

They have grown mistrustful of tales about how much better their lives will be in the EU.

Although, it ought to be mentioned that the news sources for a certain chunk of the population are tabloids and their TV and online equivalents that make the New York Post look like the Wall Street Journal.

[Josh]

2 hours ago, ink said:

I'm surprised that you're surprised.

They have grown mistrustful of tales about how much better their lives will be in the EU.

Although, it ought to be mentioned that the news sources for a certain chunk of the population are tabloids and their TV and online equivalents that make the New York Post look like the Wall Street Journal.

In the U.S. the major sources of news are Facebook for the old and TikTok for the young. You can imagine how that creates complications, even before we get to other media.

Edited September 14, 2024 by Josh

[Stefan Kotsch]

4 hours ago, ink said:

They have grown mistrustful of tales about how much better their lives will be in the EU.

This is probably a similar illusion to the one asylum seekers from Africa have. You come to the land of milk and honey and all your worries are gone, money is raining down from above and all you have to do is collect it.

How successful EU membership will be depends on the country, its politicians and its citizens. If politics sends absolutely contradictory signals to the people, the people are more likely to develop distrust. And the government can then say, see, we told you so...