Tanja Fajon will not win in Serbia for us, we have to do it ourselves – one of the opposition leaders said well, dissatisfied with the proposals for improving the election conditions that came from Brussels. If they are disappointed with that letter, and they are, then this politician has drawn a mature and sobering conclusion. However, their main problem is not in the text they received from the MEPs, the problem is that they sincerely believed that Tanja Fajon, Bilčík, Kukan and Fleckenstein could really win in Serbia, for the opposition.
They believed in that for two years, since the beginning of the first round of inter-party dialogue before the 2020 elections. They believed in the magic that they would put such pressure on the EU, that it would open its eyes, they would make it give up Aleksandar Vučić and enthrone the opposition. It seemed so easy and achievable, they just had to believe in the power of magic.
They asked for a change in the election conditions, expecting that Vučić would not give it, but surprisingly, he immediately agreed to it. The next pressure was to ask the European Parliament to mediate in the talks, because Vučić’s government is not to be trusted. It was immediately fulfilled as well. The round table brought new solutions, they were turned into laws, but even that was not good, so they started a boycott, as the peak of pressure on the EU to finally turn the page towards Serbia and Vučić. Somehow, even that pressure did not bring results, although they declared that the boycott was successful.
But new elections are coming, and the hope for a new spell with the same expectation, to bring victory. And again, the same belief that the EU should be put under pressure, that it will finally open its eyes and overthrow Vučić. And again, the same disappointment.
In the past two years, the Serbian opposition has had countless clear signs that it expects its fantasies to come true in vain. There is no Euro-factor that did not clearly said that the boycott was the wrong decision, which they do not understand. How do you plan to win if you do not participate in the elections? This was also seen in the annual report of the European Commission, a little more gently and cautiously, and also in the resolution of the European Parliament quite explicitly.
The EU has clearly said (Bilčík) that the main interlocutor regarding the future election conditions will be the parliament, and only then the other parties that participate in political life. They did not understand that either, but all the time they were asking to be the exclusive interlocutor and the only author of the new election conditions. Therefore, they did not understand when Europeans sit down to talk with Ivica Dačić first, because he is their partner (co-facilitator) in the dialogue with the parties. And only when Vučić personally joined the talks, and the EU did not oppose, the indignation reached its peak.
The paper that arrived in Belgrade from the European parliamentarians (again, first to Dačić and Vučić, and not to them), was a drop that spilled the glass. There is no parallel TV news on RTS in that paper, there is no national frequency for an “objective” television that already exists, there is no ban on the president and ministers to participate in the campaign, there is no word on who should be in power after April. There were only confirmations that the EU still “holds” Vučić and does not want to give him up.
The opposition’s disappointment with the European Union is equal to its vast ignorance of how the EU works and its even greater resistance to adapt. Both that ignorance and that resistance come from the aversion that the so-called “boycott-opposition” has towards the European Union and from its essential disinterest in Serbia ever joining it. At the beginning of their joint activities, a couple of years ago, the leaders of that bloc clearly said that to the European ambassadors in Belgrade, at an official meeting. “This issue is not among our priorities,” said one of the leaders when asked by the ambassador of an EU member state what their plan is for Serbia’s accession to the Union.
They always see the European Union as an unwanted means to reach the goal, and it has nothing to do with Europe. That goal concerns only Serbia and only the government. The knowledge that Tanja Fajon will not be able to win instead of them is therefore a difficult collision with reality, because they expected just that. The spell dissipated, in fact it never even existed.
The MEPs, and especially the Slovenian Tanja Fajon, and Slovak Vladimir Bilčík as the most exposed, are entering a period in which severe accusations will come to them from opposition Belgrade. And they have already begun. One opposition leader, on the occasion of their paper, has already concluded that it was written by the same hand that was among the abstained votes when the resolution on Serbia was voted on in Brussels this spring. And that they are politicians from the European People’s Party (EPP), who are close to Vučić and the SNS. So – betrayal.
Sobering up is all the more painful as the expectations were unrealistic. An excuse for a new election cataclysm, and perhaps for a new boycott, will now be sought not only in Vučić’s unfair election conditions, but also in betrayal by the European Union. Everything will be an excuse for not participating in the game, because for it you have to train hard and play in the lower leagues in order to reach the finals. And that, it seems, is out of the question. And that is why today, more than half a year before the elections, we have announcements about demonstrations, blockades, protests of all kinds, just as we had announcements about their boycott half a year before the previous elections. Europe will again not understand this behavior of the Serbian opposition, not only because it has invested its authority and the work of its people in the preparation of the Serbian elections, but simply because it will no longer be able to pretend to deal with the election conditions. Dealing with the Serbian opposition and its demands is, in fact, fulfilling its expectation that Tanja Fajon will win the elections. Would you like to have any business with people who really believed in it?