BELGRADE – The biggest shock of the agreement from Washington is that in just two days and with one signature, the 12-year-old illusion was broken that Serbia can balance between the great powers forever and that it will not be stopped violently, said Vuk Vuksanović, a PhD student at the London School of Economics, in an interview to FoNet.
He assessed that the United States recognized that the European Union was no longer able to be a stabilizer in the region, to bring the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina to an end, so they jumped in according to the good old custom.
“In that agreement, Belgrade avoided what Aleksandar Vučić, due to the internal public, is perhaps most afraid of, and that is the recognition of Kosovo,” Vuksanović explained.
According to Vuksanović, Belgrade may have got some pluses regarding Gazivoda and guarantees for monasteries in Kosovo, but for Vučić the main goal was nothing related to the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina – his goal was to try to build stronger relations with the American administration.
As he pointed out, this is not a legally binding agreement, but Vučić understands the political weight of the act and how much risk and price can be paid if one irritates the American administration.
Vuksanović said that the Washington agreement has obviously angered the EU, but the problem is that the Union itself has not dealt with this region in the past 12 years.
After 2008, the EU made a vacuum in the region and, after the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo and the economic crisis, the Balkans are a terra incognita for the EU, Vuksanović believes.
According to him, the European Union lacks a severe political strategy to oversee reforms in the region.