Europe or Russia?

UNDER Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s prime minister, the country is caught between its European ambitions and his autocratic drift. This week’s visit by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, highlights Serbia’s dilemmas. Its main strategic goal is to join the European Union, yet it is refusing to apply EU sanctions on its traditional ally, Russia. Indeed, to celebrate Mr Putin’s arrival, a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade was brought forward by four days, with Russian fighter jets flying over the capital.

Mr Vucic’s treatment of the Serbian media also has a Russian hue. Discussing a sensitive topic, a senior editor slips her phone under a cushion, fearful that the secret services are listening. One of her journalists went to interview a man who refused to talk after being warned off by the secret police. A popular interview show has been taken off the air. Anyone asking critical questions of Mr Vucic risks a savaging by tabloids loyal to him.

According to Serbia’s Independent Journalists’ Association, free speech and criticism “are dying in the Serbian media” and investigative journalism is “all but extinct”. Journalists practise self-censorship; critical websites are hacked. One official even attacked Ivica Dacic, the foreign minister and leader of the Socialist Party, which is in coalition with Mr Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), as “a hardened criminal”.

Mr Vucic became prime minister after winning a crushing victory in March’s election. He has since become controlling, once being filmed telling ministers and officials to be quiet. Yet many Serbs love the authoritarian touch: a poll finds that half of those who know how they would vote back SNS. This is despite an economy tipping into recession, planned cuts in public-sector pay and pensions, and proposals to chop subsidies to public enterprises. Polls suggest the opposition would barely scrape into parliament were an election held today.

Mr Vucic also needs to keep the EU happy and promote regional stability. Edi Rama, Albania’s prime minister, is due to visit Belgrade next week, though whether his visit will go ahead is in doubt after a football match between the two countries on October 14th was abandoned amidst brawling and violence triggered by the flying of an Albanian nationalist banner. President Atifete Jahjaga of Kosovo, which Serbia does not recognise, has also been invited. The EU was pleased that 7,000 police were deployed to protect a 1,000-strong gay-pride march in late September, an event that had been attacked in previous years.

One political insider says that Western leaders keen to preserve peace in the Balkans are downplaying Serbia’s authoritarian slide. For many Serbs, he adds, the question is not whether Mr Vucic is a nationalist “but whether he is a democrat”. The latest EU report on Serbia says freedom of expression and of the media is a “particular concern”. This seems unlikely to improve. /economist