A Serbia that mourns Mladić and rallies behind Vučić cannot join the European Union

“The EU is feeding the little octopus [Serbia] to try to pull it away from the giant one [Russia],” Kosovar politician (and now prime minister) Albin Kurti told EUobserver in Pristina in September 2011, in his assessment of the EU’s enlargement strategy in the Western Balkans at the time. The EU has been feeding Serbia some €1.5bn a year since it became an accession candidate in 2012. It has also opened 22 out of 35 EU accession-talk ‘chapters’, rolled out the red carpet for Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić in over 10 summits, and given Serbs visa-free access to Europe. But Serbia’s quasi-state funeral and popular outpouring of grief in Belgrade on Monday (7 September) for the general who did the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, Radtko Mladić, exposed that there was still a grotesque, regressive nationalism lurking below the surface in Serbian society, which was quite at odds with EU values. And despite the risk of Russian and Israeli interference on Vučić’s side, snap elections in October will test still further if Serbs really want change by throwing him out of power, the same way Hungarian voters did prime minister Viktor Orbán in April, or not. To read this story, log in or subscribeEnjoy access to all articles and 25 years of archives, comment and gift articles. Become a subscriber for as low as €1,75 per week.Read without limitsAlready a subscriber? Login