Belgrade’s Double Vision: Vučić Courts the EU While Vulin Courts the Past

While Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić advocates for the European Union and better regional relations, the omnipresent Aleksandar Vulin, closely aligned with Vučić, calls openly for a “Serbian World” and the end of the European path. All of it unfolds in full view of the West.

Photo: Aleksandar Vučić and Aleksandar Vulin

During the breakup of Yugoslavia, while wars engineered in Belgrade were raging across the region, Slobodan Milošević — as the president of Serbia and the undisputed leader across the territories he sought to keep under control — used a simple tactic in dealing with Western diplomats. Counting on the superficiality of the West and its fear of Belgrade’s supposed power, Milošević frightened his interlocutors with Vojislav Šešelj.

In one intercepted telephone conversation between Milošević and war criminal Radovan Karadžić, Milošević described the leader of the Serbian Radical Party with a single word: “crazy.” Milošević’s message to the West was clear: if you push me, “the crazy one” Šešelj will come to power.

From NIS to the European Union

Vučić has recycled that pattern many times in dealings with the West. Having served as Milošević’s propaganda minister and Šešelj’s party secretary, Vučić had the opportunity to learn from both men. Time and again, he has sold Brussels a polished narrative of Serbia as a guarantor of regional stability and a leader in European integration — all while setting fires across the Balkans.

The latest example arrived this week. Announcing that he would attend a working dinner in Brussels with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa, he proclaimed that he would ask EU leaders to admit all Balkan states to full membership simultaneously.

“If someone is left out, what will you do with those countries? And I know everyone talks about alignment, but this is not only about the future of the region, but it is also about the future of Europe. Admit us all together, without exception — everyone will feel better, Albanians and Bosnians included… I hear only good reactions to this idea,” Vučić said.

To reinforce his “proposal,” which the EU is not about to accept, Vučić walked into a joint press briefing with von der Leyen and Costa and declared loudly that he had “just received a message from Moscow.” Von der Leyen cut him off with: “Let’s wait,” most likely meaning that neither the time nor the place called for such theatrics. Serbian commentators called Vučić’s remark a diplomatic gaffe, but far more likely it was a calculated move — something offered to Brussels, something hinted to Moscow, and a message sent to the Serbian public that Belgrade always has an alternative.

Meanwhile, Vučić’s heartfelt concern for Albanians and Bosnians rings hollow. Serbia under his rule cannot organize free and fair elections at home, while Albanians and Bosnians continue to face pressure from Belgrade’s political apparatus. Separatism in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been coordinated from Belgrade for decades, while Kosovo Albanians have repeatedly been targets of Serbian paramilitary violence.

The timing of the Brussels performance is notable: Vučić is facing U.S. sanctions against NIS — the Serbian oil company majority-owned by Russia — now under direct American pressure. For months, Vučić has refused to remove Russian ownership from NIS, despite multiple technical solutions proposed by experts. Moscow will not easily surrender such a strategic tool in the Balkans, and Vučić will not seize it from Moscow’s hands — while likely asking Brussels for favors in exchange.

Vulin as keeper of the flame

Vučić’s claim that he hears “only good reactions to this idea” must, by the logic of Serbian politics, be paired with a radically different counter-voice. Enter his close ally Aleksandar Vulin — former minister in multiple portfolios, former head of Serbia’s intelligence service, and a man under U.S. sanctions.

In an opinion piece for Večernje novosti — a newspaper widely viewed as among the most pro-Russian in Serbia — Vulin wrote that Serbia’s European integration is “in direct conflict with the idea of uniting Serbs.”

Vulin says that Serbian citizens must decide in a referendum whether they want the European Union or the “Serbian World.” Translated bluntly, Vulin wants Serbs to choose between peace and cooperation with neighbors, or conflict over their neighbors’ territory. In normal circumstances, the government would welcome such a referendum, because rational societies choose peace. But under Vučić, that referendum will not happen — because Vulin’s option would likely win. That fact itself is one of the key “achievements” of Belgrade’s leadership from Milošević to today.

Vulin has been expressing versions of this idea for years. Throughout that time, his objective has remained the same: to manufacture instability in the region, obstruct Serbia’s and its neighbors’ European paths, and remain firmly within Moscow’s sphere of influence.

A new Belgrade bait-and-switch for the West

Vučić’s supposed concern for the feelings of Bosnians and Albanians is deceptive. The number of war criminals Serbia refuses to extradite to Bosnia and Herzegovina speaks loudly enough about what Vučić thinks of reconciliation. Vulin’s proposals speak clearly enough about what may happen if the region fails to resist.

The most intriguing aspect of this week’s dual messaging from Vučić and Vulin lies in Vulin’s framing: he calls for a change in Serbia’s national policy — implying that Vučić’s current policy is pro-European, distinct from his own pro-Russian orientation.

The fact that Vučić has managed to sell that illusion to Brussels is a tragedy that has cost the region more than a decade of European and NATO integration, deepened divisions, and dug new political trenches.

Now, as mass student and civic protests continue at home, Vučić once again tries to present himself in Brussels as a peacemaker who wants the region to join the EU and NATO.

The question is whether Brussels will once again believe that it is possible to move westward in cooperation with a pro-Russian policy and pro-Russian ministers — and to erase the consequences of a political legacy that has claimed over a hundred thousand lives, displaced millions, shattered societies, de-industrialized the region, and turned it into Europe’s periphery, forced to bow whenever Washington, Moscow, Berlin, or Brussels threaten hard enough.

The article was published earlier on nap.ba.

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