Thewesternbalkans
Serbia will not become a BRICS member in 2024, but Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic thinks about it every day. To seek an answer to the dilemma, he will go to the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, in October this year, where he has been invited as a special guest. He is very keen to walk the red carpet and join the „big boys” – Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping, Cyril Ramaphosa & co.
Serbia has not yet received an official membership invitation and has not applied to be admitted to the organization, which represents 45% of the planet’s population, 30% of its territory and 32% of the world’s GDP (according to data for 2023, i.e. before the extension from 01.01.2024). Currently, 23 countries have submitted formal requests for membership in the organization, but Serbia is not among them.
Serbian leaders realize and officially admit that BRICS membership is incompatible with EU membership, which Serbia has sought since 2009. Belgrade has not yet given up on the European path and is not ready for a sharp geopolitical turn to the East.
At this stage, Belgrade does not need to conclude a formal alliance with BRICS. Serbia is not in BRICS, but BRICS is already in Serbia anyway. Belgrade maintains excellent relations with the BRICS leading states – China and Russia, from which it receives investments and raw materials. Belgrade has done too much in the last 5-6 years to intensify bilateral relations with the “BRICS +” countries (the 9 member countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, UAE plus about 40 observer countries and candidate members). These are mostly member countries or observers in the Non-Aligned Movement, in which Serbia is currently an observer. Serbia is historically associated with the Non-Aligned Movement, has authority among these countries, as well as an autonomous potential for cooperation with them, which is being realized gradually and without much fuss.
Most of the countries that have withdrawn their recognition of Kosovo in the last ten years are from “BRICS+”. Belgrade develops intense political relations with these countries, and the economic relations are particularly stormy. According to statistical data, the export of most important Serbian goods to the BRICS countries (agricultural production, food industry, engineering goods) for the period 2019-2023 have increased from two to ten times.
For BRICS, the formalization of relations with Serbia is also not of priority importance from the point of view of the insignificant size of the Serbian economy and population compared to the other members or candidates for membership in the organization.
However, the courting of Serbia by BRICS is due to the desire to break into Europe, where Serbia can play the role of a “Trojan horse”. Attracting Serbia would mean realizing one of the original intentions of Xi Jinping and the BRICS founders to orientate towards Europe instead to the Middle East. The entry of BRICS into Europe would be a big step in the fight against the West, for de-dollarization and for creating the foundations of a new world order.
For many years, Serbs associated the dream of solving the “Serbian question” with the EU. The majority of Serbs, divided in Serbia, Republika Srpska and Kosovo, saw in the EU an opportunity for unification in an integration union, in which, even with the formal preservation of borders, a single cultural, economic and political space would be formed, i.e. the idea of the “Serbian world” will be realized practically, though not legally. Due to pressure from Washington and Brussels, this process is no longer so obvious to ordinary Serbs, among whom Euroscepticism has grown and the attractiveness of BRICS increased.
Sociological surveys by the Serbian organization New Third Way show that nearly two-thirds of the population of Serbia perceive BRICS as the best and most acceptable integration option. In a potential referendum on BRICS membership, 43.2% of Serbs would definitely vote yes, and another 16.5% would probably vote yes, for a total of almost 60%. If they could choose between the BRICS and the EU, 46.9% of respondents would choose the BRICS, and only 35% – the EU. Vucic must somehow respond to these sentiments of the Serbs.
The idea of uniting Serbs from Serbia, Republika Srpska and Northern Kosovo into an integration community under the auspices of BRICS may become attractive to those circles in Belgrade who consider the “Serbian question” not yet resolved. In such a case, Serbia, with the help of BRICS, would become an unavoidable economic and political factor in the Balkans.
For Serbia, the opportunities to increase the export of agricultural products and the options for joint financing of technological projects are of critical importance for orientation towards BRICS. BRICS is potentially attractive to Serbia (and to many other countries) with one of its main goals – removing restrictions in the protection of intellectual property in technologies of critical importance to the public (for example, medicine). The BRICS countries, led by the rapidly developing technological leaders China and India, have the ambition to achieve technological sovereignty from Western dependence and to reach political solutions for joint financing and implementation of technological projects.
In August 2023, the Movement of Socialist, a coalition partner of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SPS), submitted a resolution to the Serbian parliament justifying a decision on BRICS membership as an alternative to Serbia’s European path. The leader of the Movement of Socialist is Aleksandar Vulin, a prominent friend of Russia, sanctioned by the US and currently serving as Deputy Prime Minister in the new Serbian government. The nationalist parties Dveri and Zavetnitsi also support Serbia’s membership in BRICS. The SPS and President Vučić are not taking a definitive official position for now. Belgrade’s strategic uncertainty corresponds with the country’s multi-vector foreign policy, which critics call sitting on several chairs.
Representatives of Republika Srpska, which is part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, have repeatedly expressed a desire to cooperate with BRICS, and President Milorad Dodik has promised to ask the authorities in Sarajevo to start a procedure for BRICS membership, which he believes will happen faster than EU membership. RS also wants to participate in the forum in Kazan, along with Serbia.
In the current tense international political situation, Serbia is not interested in an escalation of hostilities with the West, and rapprochement with the BRICS is likely to remain as a supported option, demonstrating the diversification of Serbian foreign policy, with no prospect of formal membership anytime soon. Serbia is interesting for China as it is and where it is – at the entrance to the EU.
In the coming months, Vucic has the opportunity to flirt with the BRICS, which will give him the opportunity to resist the conditions that the EU sets for Belgrade to move the accession process forward.
Although it is not realistic for Serbia and the RS to become BRICS members in the short to medium term, Belgrade and Banja Luka are using the organization as leverage to influence the EU, as well as to strengthen their negotiating positions regarding the final status of Kosovo and Republika Srpska.
