Written by Alexander Vasovich
BELGRADE (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron heads to Belgrade on Thursday to strengthen ties with Serbia and bring it closer to the West as the Balkan country tries to reconcile its bid to join the European Union with close ties with Russia and China.
During his two-day visit, Macron and his populist Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic, plan to discuss issues including the purchase of French Rafale fighter jets made by Dassault, as well as energy and artificial intelligence.
This will be Macron’s second meeting with Vucic this year and comes on the heels of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Belgrade in May, highlighting Serbia’s strategic location on the edge of the European Union, with links to both East and West.
In an opinion piece in the pro-government Serbian newspaper Politika on Thursday, Macron wrote that Belgrade could maintain its independent status “only under the auspices of the European Union.”
“When war broke out again on our continent, on the initiative of Russia, … the idea that Serbia might seek its own way in the eternal game of balance of powers … is nothing but an illusion.”
The EU remains the largest investor in Serbia, and hundreds of thousands of Serbs work in Western-owned companies.
Vucic said late Wednesday that there were unresolved issues regarding the purchase of the Rafale jets, which are estimated to be worth around 3 billion euros ($3.34 billion).
“It’s not about the price, it’s about certain guarantees… We’ve been fighting for this for four days,” he told state broadcaster RTS.
Reliance on Russian gas
Aleksandar Zivotic, a history professor at the University of Belgrade, described the sale of the planes as a “historical and political deviation from Soviet-Russian influence.”
“Such military technology is not bought with money alone, but with pledges related to foreign policy position,” he added.
Belgrade has scaled back military cooperation with Moscow after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and condemned the invasion, but unlike the European Union and other Western countries, it has not imposed sanctions on Moscow.
The Serbian army and air force rely to some extent on Soviet technology, but it has also purchased helicopters and transport planes from Airbus, radars from Thales, and French Mistral surface-to-air missiles.
Belgrade, which is seeking to diversify its gas supplies, relies on Russian gas and had the Kremlin’s support in its opposition to Kosovo’s independence in 2008.
Vucic said that he and Macron will discuss cooperation in the fields of energy and artificial intelligence, and that the two countries will sign a number of related agreements.
Before joining the EU, Serbia must improve democracy, the rule of law and the judiciary, root out corruption, bureaucracy and organised crime, and align its foreign policy with Brussels’, including sanctions on Russia.
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