euro|topics - Presidential elections in Serbia

05/07/2009

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Main focus of Monday, January 21, 2008

Presidential elections in Serbia

Nationalist and Eurosceptic Tomislav Nikolic has won the first round of the presidential elections in Serbia. Head of the oppositional radicals, he received 39.6 percent of the votes, while the pro-European incumbent, Boris Tadic of the Democratic Party, took about 35 percent. The final decision comes in the run-off election on 3 February.

Delo - Slovenia

The EU wanted to encourage pro-Europe candidate Tadic, and went way too far in accommodating Serbia vis-à-vis the Stabilisation and Association Agreements, suggests Sasa Vidmajer. The EU is abandoning its principles in order to reach a solution on the Kosovo issue. "Brussels has insisted for years that there would be no agreement with the EU until war criminals are arrested, and now European policy has revealed itself to be unprincipled and unreliable. ... Europe's message regarding Serbia is catastrophic: The EU goes easy on a state that protects alleged war criminals and fails to uphold European values. Also caught in this trap is Slovenia, which currently holds the EU Council presidency. … The Netherlands remains the only country to stick to the principle that the Kosovo issue should not be bound to Serbia's chances for EU membership." (21/01/2008)

Berliner Zeitung - Germany

The close results in the first round of voting shows that a majority of Serbs want both EU membership and Kosovo, says Frank Herold. "But the country will have to decide what is more important: the attempt to defend something that is irretrievably lost, or the chance to benefit in the future. Serbia has stood at this crossroads more than once – and too often chosen the wrong direction. … If the offer of the EU turns out to be not enough, if the majority of Serbs also choose the radical nationalists in the decisive election round, it would also be a setback for Europe. But first and foremost it would be a setback for Serbs themselves. Because they no longer can prevent the secession of Kosovo, and the approach to Europe would be blocked for the foreseeable future." (21/01/2008)

Die Presse - Austria

Doris Kraus considers a closer connection between Serbia and Russia to be pure election campaign banter: "The looming independence of Kosovo is another low blow to Serbian pride. And of course it's the fault of the West. It's no wonder, given this background, that Serbia diligently plays the 'east card' in its election game: nationalist Tomislav Nikolic suggests that Serbia's political salvation lies in a close association with Russia. But this trump card doesn't win, because it recklessly avoids reality. It ignores the fact that Serbia is within Europe, and that it will soon enough be encircled by EU States." (21/01/2008)

Corriere della Sera - Italy

"After all these years, we are still at square one: how to get rid of the legacy left by [Slobodan] Milosevic?", comments the political analyst Bratislav Grubacic in an interview conducted by Mara Gergolet. "We have inherited so many disastrous things - corruption, an economical debacle, international isolation - that no government has managed a real transition. ... They [the radicals] are anti-establishment, Eurosceptic extremists. This is a phenomenon of dissent common in numerous eastern European countries. ... All this is the result of the war in the Balkans. It has not always been easy to understand who won and who lost. Take the case of Kosovo: nobody explained to the Serbs that hey had lost this war." (21/01/2008)

» To the complete press review of Monday, January 21, 2008

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