Students in Serbia are demanding what the EU should have demanded of the country 20 years ago – democracy and the rule of law, BiH is proving the absurdity of the EU’s hope that this country will enter the European common market, while it does not have its own common market, while in Montenegro the EU is declaring that this country is increasingly ready to be an EU member, while the ruling political parties are trying (not so unsuccessfully) to prove the opposite. However, from these crises it seems that there is no turning back.

By Veton Surroi 

1.

In Serbia, a student movement that is transforming into an organic civic movement for democracy managed to oust the country’s prime minister, a close associate of the country’s president. It is likely that this movement will not stop there, but will continue with its own means – occasional roadblocks, strikes at universities and schools, farmers’ marches with tractors – to continue the pressure for the democratization of the country.

Bosnia and Herzegovina was left without a government of its own, after its coalition partners withdrew from cooperation with Milorad Dodik’s SNSD party. This party and this leader have consistently obstructed the arduous journey towards the European Union – in fact, this party and this leader have done nothing but block the functioning of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state, a task not too difficult considering that the country is legally governed by a ceasefire agreement (Dayton) and not a legitimate constitutional order.

Montenegro’s parliament is in a state of chaos after the parliamentary majority, in violation of the constitution, retired two judges from the Constitutional Court. The opposition has been preventing parliamentary sessions from taking place ever since.

2.

All three crises have their own merits and all three have their own context of developments. In all three, the opponents have their own specifics – students against the power of President Vučić, Dodik against everyone else, the diverse opposition against the diverse power.

But all three crises are somewhat related and have at least two common aspects.

One is European. Serbia has been a candidate country for EU membership since 2012. Bosnia and Herzegovina has been a candidate country for EU membership since 2022. Montenegro is the country that Brussels believes could join the EU in 2030.

The common European feature of all three crises is the lack of reality in Brussels.

The current political crisis in Serbia is the demand of a new population for the state to fulfill something that the EU required of states that had not yet emerged from one-party systems – fulfillment of the Copenhagen criteria in terms of democracy and the rule of law. Serbia’s current crisis is the crisis of a country that is formally a state headed for EU membership, but is a state that still does not fulfill the basic criteria of free and fair elections and the criteria of the rule of law.

It is similar with Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is being offered to be part of the European common market while Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have a common market within the country.

And, a similar angle is with Montenegro. Since the overthrow of Djukanovic’s government (with free and democratic votes, but after a campaign of clerical nationalist demonstrations in which the Serbian Orthodox Church was also involved) Montenegro has not found a European consensus. The ideological ambivalence of the government and the opposition have found themselves in a paradoxical situation where the EU is declaring that Montenegro is increasingly ready to be a member of the EU, while the political parties in power are trying (not so unsuccessfully) to prove the opposite.

All three crises have embedded within them the illusion of the EU, the financial support of the powers that be and the magnetic force of the EU that will transform societies; that open markets are the panacea for all. And, according to the EU’s reactions, all three crises show a lack of understanding of what is happening in those three countries. And, perhaps even more, in the case of Serbia this is for the good of the citizens of Serbia: the students who are leading this movement are neither expecting nor seeking support from the EU. The EU is partly responsible for the current situation in Serbia against which they are protesting.

3.

There is also a common ground between the three crises. All three are crises of democratic deficit, but one deficit is more consequential than the others, the one in Belgrade. The lack of democratic evolution and the return of nationalist and revisionist discourses in Belgrade have had their impact on Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. Last summer, this policy was exposed with the Svesrpski Sabor (politically untranslatable in other European languages), where a Platform for action within the nationalist spirit was adopted. A democratic Serbia could be the meeting place of the six Western Balkan states to accelerate the demarcation of borders between them and the integration of the region into the EU. Serbia yesterday and today was the meeting place of Serbian leaders from almost all six Western Balkan states to hinder the integration of the region into the EU.
Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro – each with its own reasons for crisis, even without Serbia’s – could nevertheless be affected by the further development of the crisis in Serbia. If it moves towards creating the conditions for the democratic transformation of the country (through free and fair elections), then the anti-democratic pressure against BiH and Montenegro could be significantly less. A democratic Serbia could pave the way for a democratic BiH and a new European consensus in Montenegro.

4.

We do not know how these crises will develop. The great victory of the students, with the overthrow of the Serbian government, may not necessarily lead to democratic transformation. Much more will be needed for this, something similar to the democratic and non-violent transformations of the Central European states after the fall of communism. This may happen with a popular revolutionary surge of several months, it may happen with a protracted crisis of several years, there may even be a middle ground, neither flesh nor fish; a hybrid state in which autocracy does not rule, but it is not known exactly which forces rule in its place and with what strength the institutions are.

However, the best that can happen to crises of this nature, including these three, is that they reach a point of no return. Perhaps we will see this in the coming weeks./ KOHA.NET