Tag: Aleksandar Vucic

EU leader praises Serbia for its advances in EU membership bid despite growing Russian influence

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday praised the Serbian president for meeting her and other European Union leaders instead of attending a Russia-organized summit of developing economies held earlier this week.

Serbia has close ties to Russia and has refused to join international sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. In a telephone conversation Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, populist Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said EU candidate Serbia would maintain its stance on sanctions, notwithstanding EU and other Western pressure.

However, despite Putin’s invitation, Vucic did not attend a three-day summit of the BRICS group of nations, led by Russia and China, which took place in the Russian city of Kazan earlier this week. Leaders or representatives of 36 countries took part in the summit, highlighting the failure of U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia over its actions in Ukraine.

Vucic sent a high-level delegation to the meeting, but said he could not attend himself because he had scheduled meetings with von der Leyen and Polish and Greek leaders. There are fears in the West that Putin is plotting trouble in the volatile Balkans in part to shift some of the attention from its invasion of Ukraine.

“What I see is that the president of the Republic of Serbia is hosting me here today and just has hosted the prime minister of Greece and the prime minister of Poland. That speaks for itself, I think,” von der Leyen said at a joint press conference with Vucic.

“And for my part, I want to say that my presence here today, in the context of my now fourth trip to the Balkan region since I took office, is a very clear sign that I believe that Serbia’s future is in the European Union,” she said.

Vucic said he knows what the EU is demanding for eventual membership — including compliance with foreign policy goals — but did not pledge further coordination.

“Of course, Ursula asked for much greater compliance with EU’s foreign policy declaration,” he said. “We clearly know what the demands are, what the expectations are.”

Von der Leyen was in Serbia as part of a trip this week to aspiring EU member states in the Western Balkans to assure them that EU enlargement remains a priority for the 27-nation bloc. From Serbia, von der Leyen will travel to neighboring Kosovo and Montenegro.

Serbian media reported that von der Leyen refused to meet with Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic because of his talks Friday with a high-level Russian economic delegation, which was in Belgrade to discuss deepening ties with Serbia. Vucic will meet the Russian officials on Saturday.

In Bosnia on Friday, von der Leyen promised support for the deeply split Balkan country which is struggling with the reforms needed to advance toward EU membership.

The Western Balkan countries — Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia — are at different stages in their applications for EU membership. The countries have been frustrated by the slow pace of the process, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has propelled European leaders to push the six to join the bloc.

Bosnia gained candidate status in 2022. EU leaders in March agreed in principle to open membership negotiations, though Bosnia must still do a lot of work.

“We share the same vision for the future, a future where Bosnia-Herzegovina is a full-fledged member of the European Union,” said von der Leyen at a joint press conference with Bosnian Prime Minister Bojana Kristo. “So, I would say, let’s continue working on that. We’ve gone a long way already, we still have a way ahead of us, but I am confident that you’ll make it.”

Last year EU officials offered a 6-billion-euro (about $6.5 billion) growth plan to the Western Balkan countries in an effort to double the region’s economy over the next decade and accelerate their efforts to join the bloc. That aid is contingent on reforms that would bring their economies in line with EU rules.

The Commission on Wednesday approved the reform agendas of Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia following a green light from EU member states. That was a key step to allow payments under the growth plan upon completion of agreed reform steps.

However, Bosnia’s reform agenda has still not been signed off by the Commission.

“The accession process is, as you know, merit-based … we do not look at a rigid data but we look at the merits, the progress that a country is making,” said von der Leyen. “The important thing is that we have an ambitious reform agenda, like the other five Western Balkan countries also have. We stand ready to help you to move forward.”

Long after a 1992-95 ethnic war that killed more than 100,000 people and left millions homeless, Bosnia remains ethnically divided and politically deadlocked. An ethnic Serb entity — one of Bosnia’s two equal parts joined by a common government — has sought to gain as much independence as possible.

Upon arrival in Bosnia, von der Leyen on Thursday first went to Donja Jablanica, a village in central Bosnia that was devastated in recent floods and landslides. The disaster in early October claimed 27 lives and the small village was virtually buried in rocks from a quarry located on a hill above.

Von der Leyen said the EU is sending an immediate aid package of 20 million euros ($21 million) and will also provide support for reconstruction later on.

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AP writer Jovana Gec contributed from Belgrade.

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October 25, 2024
NATO bolsters forces in Kosovo as US urges Serbia to withdraw from border

NATO said on Friday it is increasing its peacekeeping presence in northern Kosovo as a result of escalating tensions with neighboring Serbia, as the U.S. called on Serbia to withdraw a military buildup on the border with Kosovo.

The heightening of tensions comes after about 30 heavily armed Serbs stormed the northern Kosovo village of Banjska last Sunday. A Kosovo policeman and three of the attackers were killed in gun battles.

“We need NATO because the border with Serbia is very long and the Serbian army has been recently strengthening its capacities,” Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti told the Associated Press. “They have a lot of military equipment from both the Russian Federation and China,” he said.

“These people want to turn back time,” Kurti said. “They are in search of a time machine. They want to turn the clock back by 30 years. But that is not going to happen,” he said.

Kosovo declared independence in 2008, but Belgrade and Moscow have refused to recognize it.

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby confirmed a “large military deployment” of Serbian tanks and artillery was on the border. He described the buildup as “a very destabilizing development” and called on Serbia to withdraw these forces.

The White House also “underscored the readiness of the United States to work with our allies to ensure KFOR [NATO’s Kosovo Force] remained appropriately resourced to fulfill its mission,” according to a readout of a call between the U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Kurti.

Kirby added that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had called Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to urge “immediate de-escalation” and a return to dialogue.

The U.K. also said it was sending troops to support NATO’s peacekeepers on the ground.

Milan Radoicic, the vice president of Serb List, the main Kosovo-Serb political party, resigned on Friday after admitting to setting up the armed group responsible for the attack.

The U.S. ambassador to Kosovo earlier said Washington had concluded that the weekend attack was intended to destabilize the region and warned of potential further escalation. “We know it was coordinated and sophisticated,” Ambassador Jeffrey M. Hovenier told POLITICO, adding the gunmen appeared to have had military training. “The quantity of weapons suggests this was serious, with a plan to destabilize security in the region,” he said.

The EU and the U.S. have pushed for years to broker a lasting peace between Kosovo and Serbia, but a deal has remained elusive amid continued divisions over the status of northern Kosovo, where a majority of the population is Serbian.

Mathieu Pollet

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September 28, 2023
Serbs put up new roadblocks as tensions soar in Kosovo

MITROVICA, Kosovo — Serbs on Tuesday erected more roadblocks in northern Kosovo and defied international demands to remove those placed earlier, a day after Serbia put its troops near the border on a high level of combat readiness.

The new barriers, made of heavily loaded trucks, were put up overnight in Mitrovica, a northern Kosovo town divided between Kosovo Serbs and ethnic Albanians, who represent the majority in Kosovo as a whole.

It was the first time since the recent crisis started that Serbs have blocked streets in one of the main towns. Until now, barricades had been set on roads leading to the Kosovo-Serbia border.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said he ordered the army’s highest state of alert to “protect our people (in Kosovo) and preserve Serbia.”

He claimed that Pristina is preparing to “attack” Kosovo Serbs in the north of the country and remove by force several of the roadblocks that Serbs started putting up 18 days ago to protest the arrest of a former Kosovo Serb police officer.

On Tuesday, Vucic addressed reporters together with Serbian Patriarch Porfirije, who was barred by Kosovo authorities on Monday from entering Kosovo and visiting a medieval Serb church there before Serbian Orthodox Christmas, which is celebrated on Jan. 7.

In his usual manner, Vucic blasted the West and Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian authorities of plotting together to “trigger unrest and kill the Serbs” who are manning the barricades.

“Their aim is to expel Serbia out of Kosovo … with the help of their agents in Belgrade,” he said, apparently referring to the rare opposition and independent media, which are critical of his handling of the Kosovo crisis and his increasingly autocratic policies.

Nevertheless, he said that he is currently negotiating with European Union and U.S. mediators “on preserving peace and finding a compromise solution” for the current crisis.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic on Tuesday refused to comment on claims that Serbia had sent into Kosovo a number of armed men who are probably manning the barricades.

“I will not discuss that with you,” she said when asked by a reporter if she knows whether “Serbia’s armed forces” were currently present in Kosovo.

Kosovo officials have accused Vucic of using Serbia’s state media to stir up trouble and trigger incidents that could act as a pretext for an armed intervention in the former Serbian province.

Petar Petkovic, a Serbian government official in charge of contacts with Kosovo Serbs, told Serbian state television RTS that the combat readiness of Serb troops was introduced because Kosovo had done the same thing. Kosovo officials have denied that the country has raised its security alert levels.

Petkovic claimed that heavily armed Kosovo units want to attack Kosovo Serbs, including “women, the elderly, children, men. Our people who at the barricades are just defending the right to live.”

Kosovo has asked NATO-led peacekeepers stationed there to remove the barriers and hinted that Pristina’s forces will do it if the KFOR force doesn’t react. About 4,000 NATO-led peacekeepers have been stationed in Kosovo since the 1999 war, which ended with Belgrade losing control over the territory.

Any Serbian armed intervention in Kosovo would likely result in a clash with NATO forces and would mean a major escalation of tensions in the Balkans, which are still reeling from the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Tensions between Kosovo, which declared independence after a war in 2008, and Serbia have reached their peak over the past month. Western attempts to reach a negotiated settlement have failed, with Serbia refusing to recognize Kosovo’s statehood.

KFOR and the EU have both asked Pristina and Belgrade to show restraint and avoid provocations.

Kosovo remains a potential flashpoint in the Balkans years after the 1998-99 Kosovo war that ended with a NATO intervention that pushed Serbian troops out of the former Serbian province.

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Dusan Stojanovic reported from Belgrade, Serbia.

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December 27, 2022
Serbs put up new roadblocks as tensions soar in Kosovo

BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbs on Tuesday erected more roadblocks in northern Kosovo and defied international demands to remove those placed earlier, a day after Serbia put its troops near the border on a high level of combat readiness.

The new barriers, made of laden trucks, were put up overnight in Mitrovica, a northern Kosovo town divided between Kosovo Serbs and ethnic Albanians, who represent the majority in Kosovo as a whole.

It is the first time since the recent crisis started that Serbs have blocked streets in one of the main towns. Until now, barricades had been set on roads leading to the Kosovo-Serbia border.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said he ordered the army’s highest state of alert to “protect our people (in Kosovo) and preserve Serbia.”

He claimed that Pristina is preparing to “attack” Kosovo Serbs in the north of the country and remove by force several of the roadblocks that Serbs started putting up 18 days ago to protest the arrest of a former Kosovo Serb policemen.

Kosovo officials have accused Vucic of using his state media to stir trouble and trigger incidents that would act as a pretext for an armed intervention in the former Serbian province.

Petar Petkovic, a Serbian government official in charge of contacts with Kosovo Serbs, told the Serbian state RTS TV that the combat readiness of Serb troops was introduced because Kosovo had done the same thing.

He claimed that heavily armed Kosovo units want to attack the Kosovo Serbs “with the intention of attacking our women, the elderly, children, men. Our people who at the barricades are just defending the right to live.”

Kosovo has asked NATO-led peacekeepers stationed there to remove the barricades and hinted that Pristina’s forces will do it if the KFOR force doesn’t react. Some 4,000 NATO-led peacekeepers have been stationed in Kosovo since the 1999 war that ended with Belgrade losing control over the territory.

Any Serbian armed intervention in Kosovo would likely result in a clash with NATO forces and would mean a major escalation of tensions in the Balkans, which are still reeling from the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Tensions between Kosovo, which declared independence after a war in 2008, and Serbia have reached their peak over the past month. Western attempts to reach a negotiated settlement have failed, with Serbia refusing to recognize Kosovo’s statehood.

KFOR and the European Union have both asked Pristina and Belgrade to show restraint and avoid provocations.

Kosovo remains a potential flashpoint in the Balkans years after the 1998-99 Kosovo war that ended with a NATO intervention that pushed the Serbian troops out of the former Serbian province.

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December 27, 2022
EU, Western Balkans to boost partnership amid Ukraine war

TIRANA, Albania — EU leaders and their Western Balkan counterparts gathered Tuesday for talks aimed at strengthening their partnership as Russia’s war in Ukraine threatens to reshape the geopolitical balance in the region.

The EU wants to use the one-day summit in Albania’s capital to tell leaders from Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia that they have futures within the wealthy economic bloc and give them concrete signs, rather than just promises, that they will join one day.

European Council President Charles Michel, who is jointly chairing the summit, hailed it as a “symbolic meeting” that will cement the futures of the six countries within Europe.

“I am absolutely convinced that the future of our children will be safe and more prosperous with the Western Balkans within the EU, and we are working very hard in order to make progress,” he told reporters.

As proof of the bloc’s commitment, Michel underscored EU energy support to the region in light of the war’s impact on supplies and prices, as well as a mobile telephone roaming charges agreement.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, has been repeating that stepping up the bloc’s engagement with the six nations is more crucial than ever to maintaining Europe’s security.

As Europe’s relationship with Russia deteriorates further because of the war, tensions have also mounted in the Balkans and the EU wants to avoid other flashpoints close to its borders.

“The war is sending shockwaves, it affects everybody, and especially this region,” Borrell told reporters in Tirana, adding that the aim of the summit would be to mitigate the consequences of the war in a neighborhood that was torn by conflicts following the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

According to a draft of the declaration to be adopted at the summit, the EU will repeat “its full and unequivocal commitment to the European Union membership perspective of the Western Balkans” and call for an acceleration of accession talks with the incumbents.

In return, the EU expects full solidarity from its Western Balkans partners and wants them fully aligned with its foreign policies.

That particular point has been problematic with Serbia, whose president, Aleksandar Vucic, claims he wants to take Serbia into the European Union but has cultivated ties with Russia.

Although Serbia’s representatives voted in favor of various U.N. resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vucic has refused to explicitly condemn Moscow. His country has not joined Western sanctions against Russia over the war.

“The Western Balkans have decided to embark on the European path, this is a two-way street,” Borrell said. “And we also expect the region to deliver on key reforms, and certainly to show the will to embrace the European Union’s ambition and spirit. Many do, but we see also hesitations.”

Although the progress of the six nations toward EU membership had stalled recently, there has been some progress over the past few months.

This summer, the EU started membership negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia following years of delays. And Bosnia moved a small step closer on its path to joining the powerful economic bloc when the commission advised member countries in October to grant it candidate status despite continuing criticism of the way the nation is run.

Kosovo has only started the first step, with the signing of a Stabilization and Association Agreement. It said it would apply for candidate status later this month.

The EU last admitted a new member — Croatia, which is also part of the Balkans — in 2013. Before that, Bulgaria and Romania joined in 2007. With the withdrawal of the United Kingdom in 2021, the EU now has 27 member nations.

“We need the EU to move from words to deeds,” said Kosovo president Vjosa Osmani.

To help households and businesses weather the impact of Russia’s war on energy and food security, the EU has earmarked one billion euros in grants to the Western Balkans, hoping the money will encourage double the investment.

Leaders will also discuss migration issues that remains one of Europe’s biggest concerns in light of the number of migrants trying to enter the bloc without authorization via the Western Balkans, notably through Serbia.

The EU’s border agency Frontex said it had detected more than 22,300 attempted entries in October, nearly three times as many as a year ago.

Around 500 Frontex officers are working along the EU’s borders with Balkan nations but staff will soon be deployed inside the region itself. Serbia’s border with Hungary is a notorious hotspot. Late last month, a man was shot and wounded and a number of others were detained following reports of a clash between migrants in a town on the Serbian side of the border. Europol police agents will also be sent there.

One cause of the movements is that Serbia, which wants to join the EU, has not aligned its visa policies with the bloc. People from several countries requiring visas to enter the bloc arrive in Serbia without such paperwork then slip through. Many from Burundi, Tunisia, India, Cuba and Turkey enter the EU this way.

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Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this story.

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December 6, 2022
EU official: Kosovo, Serbia reach a deal on vehicle plates

PRISTINA, Kosovo — The European Union’s top diplomat on Wednesday said Kosovo and Serbia have reached a deal on a dispute over vehicle number plates, defusing rising tensions between the two Western Balkan neighbors.

EU high representative Josep Borrell posted in his social media page that Kosovo’s and Serbia’s negotiators “have agreed to avoid further escalation and to fully concentrate on the proposal on normalization of their relations.” Serbia will stop issuing license plates with Kosovo cities’ denominations and Kosovo would cease further actions on the re-registration of vehicles.

Talks will continue on the subsequent steps.

Earlier this week Borrell had failed to convince Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti to reach a deal, further raising concerns about the escalating tensions between the former war foes.

Kurti blamed Borrell for focusing solely on the license plates instead of the full normalization of ties between the neighbors.

Vucic said Kurti was responsible for the failure of the meeting.

The EU-backed Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue, which is aimed at normalizing relations between the neighbors and former foes in the Western Balkans, has been at a virtual standstill for years. The EU warned Serbia and Kosovo last week that they are on the edge of a precipice and must resolve their dispute or face the prospect of a return to their violent past.

Long-simmering tensions between Serbia and its former province mounted again in recent weeks over the Kosovo government’s decision to ban Serbian-issued license plates, matching Serbia’s earlier ban on Kosovo license plates.

Under the ban, about 6,300 ethnic Serbs owning cars with number plates deemed to be illegal in Kosovo were to be warned until Monday, which was postponed with 48 hours after U.S. embassy’s intervention. Then Kosovo authorities would fine them for the following two months. Until April 21 they would only be permitted to drive with temporary local plates and not allowed to drive after that date.

On Nov. 5, Serb lawmakers, prosecutors and police officers in Kosovo’s northern Mitrovica region resigned over the move.

The issue of Kosovo’s independence sparked a 1998-99 war in which about 13,000 people died. Serbia launched a brutal crackdown to curb a separatist rebellion by the territory’s ethnic Albanians. NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 to end the war.

Kosovo unilaterally broke away from Serbia in 2008. The Serbian government, with support from China and Russia, has refused to acknowledge Kosovo’s statehood. The United States and most of its European allies recognize Kosovo as an independent country.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said that the NATO-led mission in Kosovo, known as KFOR, “remains vigilant.”

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Llazar Semini reported in Tirana, Albania.

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November 23, 2022
Austria, Hungary equipping Serbia to curb border crossings

BELGRADE, Serbia — Austria and Hungary will help Serbia curb migrant crossings at its southern border, Hungary’s foreign minister said Thursday, citing an “explosion” in the number of people entering European countries without authorization in recent months.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Hungary and Austria would supply Serbia with both equipment and personnel to better secure its border with North Macedonia. He spoke after delegations from the three countries met in Belgrade.

“It is our common interest to move the defense line toward the south and that is why we agreed to join forces,” Serbian media quoted Szijjarto as saying.

“There has been an explosion in the number of migrants, and it really can be compared with 2015,” when more than 1 million people entered Europe, he said.

Thursday’s meeting followed one the leaders of Austria, Hungary and Serbia held earlier in the week on developing a joint strategy to curb migration.

Migrants from the Asia, Africa and the Middle East who manage to reach Greece from Turkey then move north along the so-called Balkan route toward North Macedonia and further into Serbia before reaching the borders of European Union members Hungary or Croatia.

The journeys are long and often dangerous. Bodies floated amid splintered wreckage in the water off a Greek island on Thursday as the death toll from the sinking of two migrant boats hundreds of miles apart rose to at least 21, with many still missing.

Hungary erected a wire fence on its border with Serbia in 2016 to stop unauthorized crossings and faced criticism for its anti-immigration policies. Migrants looking to enter Hungary now seek help from people smugglers to cross. Serbian police reported Wednesday that they detained a number of suspected smugglers following a raid near the border.

“Serbia, Hungary and Austria share a joint problem because of the migration crisis and huge pressure at the borders,” Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin said.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic promised this week that Belgrade would align its visa policies with the EU’s to stop Serbia’s visa-free arrangements with some countries from being used for unauthorized migration.

Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said his country received 58,000 asylum requests so far this year from people from Tunisia, Morocco, India and other countries whose citizens are not eligible for protection.

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Follow AP’s coverage of global migration: https://apnews.com/hub/migration

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October 6, 2022
Hungary, Austria and Serbia work together to stem migration

BERLIN — The leaders of Hungary, Austria and Serbia met Monday in Budapest to find solutions on how to stem the increasing number of migrants arriving in Europe, among them many young men from India.

The three leaders agreed to take joint action to control the new arrivals along the migration route that leads through Serbia.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer told reporters after the meeting that the joint action plan would include increased police cooperation along the borders as well as supporting Serbia when it comes to deporting migrants back to their home countries.

“We will directly support Serbia to carry out repatriations and not only support technical know-how, but also do everything possible that is necessary, and financially support them,” Nehammer said.

The Austrian chancellor lauded Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s announcement that by the end of the year Serbia would align its visa policies with the European Union — Serbia is an EU candidate country but not a member yet — so that the visa-free regime with some non-EU countries is no longer used for migration purposes.

“We will thus prevent the situation when someone uses Serbia as a country of arrival but not because of their real needs but for illegal migration toward the west,” Vucic said.

Hungarian President Viktor Orban called for an overall political change in how to approach migration and suggested so-called hot spot centers outside the European Union where asylum-seeker requests should be processed. He added that “we are not satisfied at all with the situation that has developed.”

That procedure would, however, undermine the national laws of some European countries, among them Germany, which has enshrined in its constitution every foreigner’s right to apply for political asylum and have his or her request individually checked while staying in the country.

Among the migrants recently detained in Austria who have applied for asylum to avoid immediate deportation, Indians accounted for the biggest group in September, according government data.

Indians are not allowed to enter the EU without a visa but have taken advantage of being able to travel to Serbia which they can enter without a visa. From there, many are trying to reach Western European countries with the help of traffickers.

Monday’s meeting in the Hungarian capital came after announcements by the Czech Republic and Austria last week that they would launch temporary border controls at their crossings with Slovakia to stop migrants from entering.

In addition to the meeting in Budapest, the interior ministers of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia called on the European Union on Monday to better protect the outer borders to curb the latest increase of migration.

“We’re facing problems that affect the entire Europe,” said Vit Rakusan, the interior minister of the Czech Republic.

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Jovana Gec reported from Belgrade, Serbia. Bela Szandelzsky in Budapest, Hungary, and Karel Janicek in Prague, contributed to this report.

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Follow all AP stories on migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

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October 3, 2022