The Challenge of Sanctions: The European Union Facing Serbia’s Existential Crisis

Why did Serbia not impose sanctions on Russia following Moscow’s aggression of Ukraine in February 2022? Serbia’s refusal to join ever-more punitive measures adopted by the European Union (EU) attracted increased attention from the international community. Serbia is the only European state that did not endorse the sanction regime. As a state vying for EU membership, its behavior is puzzling. Yet, this stance is consistent with the country’s ongoing balancing act between “East” and “West” and its effort to face geopolitical challenges by pursuing apparently contradictory foreign policy objectives. Serbia has committed simultaneously to Euro-Atlantic integration, which involves the pursuit of democratic and human rights norms and policy alignment with EU decisions (including on sanctions), and to develop political and economic ties with authoritarian and illiberal powers such as Russia and China. Previous scholarship has pointed out how this ambiguous foreign policy reflects a deliberate strategy aimed at consolidating the power of the ruling party (and of its increasingly authoritarian leader Aleksandar Vučić) while maximizing the country’s room for maneuver internationally. In particular, cozy relations with Moscow and Beijing provide Belgrade with various economic opportunities and with principled support for its stance against the recognition of Kosovo’s independence, which Serbia still considers as an integral part of its national territory (and identity). While this argument provides important insights, it is also incomplete. The analysis of both opinion polls and governmental statements and deliberations reveals Serbia’s persisting existential crisis. Drawing from the ontological security literature, this paper shows how the end of the Yugoslav wars left Serbia traumatized, in a condition of ontological insecurity, unable to come to terms with the new geopolitical situation and profoundly divided between “East” and “West.” Serbia’s ambiguous position within the international system explains its erratic and incoherent foreign policy behavior more accurately than explanations based on the self-interest of Serbian elites. It also presents the EU with a formidable challenge at its own doorsteps.