The Dutch parliament unanimously voted on Wednesday to postpone Serbia’s candidacy for European Union (EU) membership until at least December. The decision came even though the other 26 EU member states made it clear that they favored Belgrade’s candidacy. It also came after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made glowing statements about Belgrade’s pro-Western government and specifically its president, Boris Tadic, during her visit on Oct. 12, calling Serbia a “leader in Europe” and unreservedly throwing Washington’s support behind Belgrade’s EU bid.

The Dutch decision has been widely perceived by Serbians as a reaction to the riots in Belgrade on Oct. 10, led by well-organized and motivated violent nationalist groups — self-styled “patriotic movements” — and subsequent Oct. 12 unrest in Genoa at a Serbia-Italy soccer match by some of the same elements. However, the Netherlands would have probably made its decision no matter the events in Belgrade and Genoa, largely because of a combination of Dutch politics — which have taken a turn to the right, and therefore markedly against EU enlargement — and Dutch insistence on maintaining an EU commitment to a certain set of membership standards regardless of supposed geopolitical benefits.

The Dutch decision on Serbia may not seem the obvious pick for the key event of the day. But if history teaches us anything about the Balkans it is that its supposedly petty politics have a tendency of forcing great powers to shift their focus to its banal instability.

In 2000, Serbia’s nationalist leader, Slobodan Milosevic — who the West has blamed for much of the ethnic strife in former Yugoslavia — was overthrown by what then seemed to be a pro-Western popular uprising. To the West, the uprising seemed to conclude Serbia’s 10 years of geopolitical dithering because the ringleaders of the uprising, student movement OTPOR, were unequivocally oriented toward a European future for Serbia — and quite photogenic to boot, which helps in the West. However, the uprising — as do most coalitions cobbled together to unseat a strongman — brought together a cacophony of perspectives of what Serbia should be, from hardened nationalists to ultra liberals. Its success was more a product of Milosevic’s failure to balance the opposition against one another than of a clear national consensus on Serbia’s future.

The problem for Serbia, however, was not just that the opposition was united merely in its desire to remove Milosevic from power. The problem was also that Milosevic’s overthrow was not really a violent revolution, allowing the institutions and structures of power under Milosevic to remain very much in place. The civilian bureaucracy he dominated, law enforcement organizations he painstakingly cajoled to serve him, and complex links between organized crime and the state that he purposefully fostered remained in place. The pro-West government that followed, led by Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, replaced the heads of departments, but had the thankless task of weeding out former influences and connections between Serbia’s underworld and the government. The government’s orders were blatantly ignored or siphoned via informants in key institutions of law enforcement and intelligence to organized crime networks. That Djindjic was making progress is now understood because his efforts to eliminate the shadowy world of organized crime ultimately cost him his life in 2003.

While things have on the surface progressively become more stable — Serbia held a number of relatively uneventful elections and transferred power from a nationalist to pro-European government in 2008 — the state has not necessarily become stronger. A confrontation with organized crime and violent nationalist groups is still not something that Belgrade wants to fully commit to, not for the lack of political will but for an apparent lack of capacity.

And herein lies the irony of the Dutch decision. The West has for a long time been skeptical of Serbia’s political will to confront its past. But the events of the past few days in Belgrade and Genoa in fact illustrate that for Serbia the problem may be more a lack of capacity, which is in many ways much more serious. It is better to be somewhat obstinate — but capable — than to openly lack state power. At least the former can be fixed with a mere switch in attitude; the latter can in fact motivate extremist elements to intimidate the government further. Belgrade also can’t necessarily come clean about its lack of capacity and ask for help, however, because if Europe understood just how impotent the government is, it is not guaranteed it would try to help by speeding up EU membership. This is particularly so at a time when Europe is consumed with institutional and economic problems unearthed by its financial crisis. Serbia’s president, Tadic — like Djindjic — is therefore left with the nearly impossible job of masquerading Belgrade’s lack of potency, offering Europe excuses, while dealing with the unmet expectations of his electorate.

Meanwhile, in Serbia the violent soccer “fans” — whose supposed origin in sport fandom belies their organizational capacity, violent history of participating in ethnic cleansing of the 1990s and links to organized crime — and violent nationalist groups are continuously finding new recruits in the underemployed, disaffected and largely futureless youth. Generations born in the 1990s have no point of reference to Serbia’s golden years within Yugoslavia and have come to expect as normal the political unrest, street violence and extreme nationalism. Serbia and its youth also do not lack disappointment, anger and angst, particularly toward the West. The West conducted a three month bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999, offered practically unanimous support for Kosovo independence and ultimately forced Belgrade to accept the modern equivalent of Germany’s WWI “War Guilt Clause” for Belgrade’s role in conflicts of the 1990s. Concurrently, the economy is in a state of collapse due to a combination of continued political instability — which steers away meaningful investments — and the ongoing global economic crisis. The average monthly wage is now below even that of neighboring Albania, which for Serbs is tantamount to a civilizational collapse. These are the breeding grounds for this week’s extremism.

And here we find ourselves slowly discerning a portrait of a Serbia whose past 10 years are beginning to resemble those of the German Weimar Republic. Paralleling Weimar’s 15-year existence, Serbia has had a number of setbacks: forced to accept defeat and blame for wars it believes it lost due to the West’s interventions, keep paying for the sins of a regime it feels it overthrew on its own and lastly deal with an economic crisis it had no control over and cannot deal with alone. And to re-enter the Western club of nations it has — much like interwar Germany — introduced democratic institutions at a time when the fight against violent nationalist groups requires a particularly heavy, potentially undemocratic hand. The greatest danger for Serbia is not that the state collapses, but that — as in the Weimar Republic — certain political forces in the country ultimately decide that it is easier to make compromises with extremist elements than continue toiling at strengthening the republic against both international and domestic impediments.

And such a Serbia would shift global focus very quickly back to the Balkans.

Sukobi na ulicama Beograda u vreme Parade ponosa i neredi na fudbalskoj utakmici u Đenovi ukazuju da bi glavni problem u Srbiji mogao da bude nedostatak kapaciteta da se izbori sa ekstremizmom, ocenjuje američka agencija Stratfor u svojoj trećoj analizi posvećenoj stanju u Srbiji

"Zapad je dugo godina bio skeptičan prema spremnosti Srbije da se suoči sa prošlošću. Događaji od poslednjih nekoliko dana u Beogradu i Đenovi zapravo pokazuju da je glavni problem Srbije možda nedostatak kapaciteta, što bi moglo da bude mnogo ozbiljnije", ocenjuje ta američka agencija za strateška istraživanja.

Beograd bi, dodaje se u analizi, u sadašnjoj situaciji mogao da zatraži pomoć od Evrope ali, s druge strane, ukoliko bi Evropa shvatila koliko je nesposobna srpska vlasti malo je verovatno da bi se odlučila da ubrza pitanje srpske kandidature.

"Srpski predsednik Boris Tadić je sada, kao nekada Đinđić, praktično pred nemogućim zadatakom - da prikrije nesposobnost Beograda, ponudi opravdanje Evropi, dok se istovremeno suočava sa neispunjenim očekivanjima svojih birača", ocenjuje agencija.

Stratfor podseća da ekstremne nacionalističke i navijačke grupe uspevaju da regrutuju nove pristalice u redovima mladih i nezaposlenih koji ne vide nikakvu budućnost, koji su nezadovljni i osecaju bes, posebno prema Zapadu.

"U Srbiji je privreda pred kolapsom zbog, s jedne strane političke nestabilnosti koja stoji na putu ozbiljnim investicijama, i s druge, svetske ekonomske krize. Prosečna plata je sada niža nego u susednoj Albaniji, koja je za Srbe sinonim za kolaps civilizacije. To je ono što je pogodno tlo za ovonedeljni ekstremizam", dodaje se u analizi.

Stratfor povlači paralelu između prethodnih 10 godina srpske istrorije i istorije Vajmarske Republike.

Podseća se da je Srbija pre 10 godina uspela da zbaci režim Slobodana Miloševića, ali je potom došlo do razmimoilaženja u stavovima unutar koalicije oko toga kojim putem zemlja treba dalje da ide, podseća američka agencija.

Država je morala da prihvati poraz i odgovornost za ratove devedesetih, da nastavi da ispašta grehe Miloševićevog režima i na kraju da se izbori sa ekonomskom krizom nad kojom nema nikakvu kontrolu, podvlači se u analizi.

"Da bi ponovo ušla u klub zapadnih država, kao svojevremeno Nemačka u periodu između dva rata, Srbija mora da uvede demokratske institucije i to u vreme kada borba potiv nasilnih nacionalističkih grupa zahteva čvrstu, možda čak i nedemokratsku ruku", ocenjuje američka agencija.

Najveća opasnost za Srbiju nije urušavnje države nego, mogućnost da, kao i u Vajmarskoj Republici, neke političke snage u zemlji čvrsto odluče da je jednostavnije napraviti kompromis sa esktremističkim snagama, nego nastaviti mukotrpan put na jačanju države uprkos međunarodnih i domaćih prepreka, ocenjuje Stratfor.

Podsećajući da je holandski parlament jednoglasno odlučio da se pitanje srpske kandidature odloži najmanje do decembra, Stratfor navodi da je takva odluka doneta i pored toga što je ostalih 26 članica EU stavilo do znanja da podržavaju kandidaturu Srbije.

Odluka Holandije verovatno bi bila identična i da nije došlo do nereda u Beogradu tokom održavanja Parade ponosa, a zatim i dva dana kasnije u Đenovi na utakmici između Italije i Srbije, iako mnogi u Beogradu veruju da je to reakcija na ono što se dogodilo, ocenjuje Stratfor.

Agencija ukazuje da je u samoj Holandiji nedavno došlo do zaokreta politike ka desnici, tako da je bilo očekivano da dođe i do promene stava prema širenju EU.

A Revitalized Far Right in Serbia?

Summary

The Oct. 10 clashes in Belgrade demonstrated stronger-than-expected organizational capabilities on the part of ultranationalist neo-fascist groups, who are believed to have brought thousands of demonstrators from other parts of the country into the capital to riot during a gay pride parade. The rioters, however, mainly targeted government and media buildings and the headquarters of the pro-Western ruling party. The riots may have served as a wake-up call to the Serbian government that those neo-fascist groups could pose a threat to the ruling Serbian government and the wider Balkans.
Analysis

Belgrade was rocked by rioting Oct. 10 as ultranationalist neo-fascist groups battled police and law enforcement in the city for about seven hours. The pretense for the rioting was a gay pride parade, but rioters largely steered clear of the parade and targeted government buildings, state-owned media outlet RTS, and the headquarters of governing and pro-Western parties.

The rioting came only two days before U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Belgrade on Oct. 12, a visit intended to reward the pro-Western Serbian government for recently showing flexibility in its approach toward the breakaway region of Kosovo, whose independence U.S. supports. Serbian ultranationalist parties and groups vehemently oppose Kosovo’s independence as well as the Serbian government’s EU integration efforts. The organizational capacity of the rioters demonstrated by the clashes suggests that the neo-fascist groups are better organized than the government believed prior to the rioting and that they are a viable threat to the stability of Serbia, and thus potentially the Western Balkans in its entirety.

Around 6,500 members of neo-fascist groups took to the streets against around 5,600 police officers and gendarmes, elite Serbian Interior Ministry troops. Property was significantly damaged and around 200 people were injured, 147 of whom were police officers. The high proportion of police among the overall number injured suggests that police may have been hesitant to brutally clamp down on the rioters in order to avoid inciting a backlash, and thus more violence, but in doing so may have been unprepared for the intensity of the riots. Serbian law enforcement said it had arrested 249 people, 60 percent of whom are residents of interior Serbia, meaning that rioters came to Belgrade from surrounding towns.

Serbian police said weapons were found on the roofs of some Belgrade buildings and that empty bullet casings were found in the ruling Democratic Party (DS) headquarters, which was one of the buildings targeted during the clashes. Serbian police also arrested the leader of the Obraz (“Cheek” in Serbian) neo-fascist movement on whose person they allegedly found plans for coordinating the riots and a list of orders for ultranationalist activists to attack different areas of the town.

The Oct. 10 rioting seems to indicate that Serbia’s neo-fascist groups have become well-organized and present a serious threat to the state as they have become intertwined with traditional protest groups in Serbia. Generally referred to as “soccer hooligans” or just “hooligans,” the groups have played an important role in recent Balkan history. Composed of large groups of disaffected young men with nationalistic sympathies but no clear ideological leanings, soccer hooligans in both Croatia and Serbia were ideal recruits for paramilitary units of the Yugoslav Civil Wars in the 1990s. Serbian paramilitary volunteers who crisscrossed Bosnia-Herzegovina committing ethnic cleansing and looting property were a convenient tool for then-President Slobodan Milosevic because they offered Belgrade plausible deniability in terms of human rights violations while allowing Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina to take over areas in which other ethnicities had predominated.

However, Milosevic lost the support of a wide array of nationalist groups in the late 1990s and soccer hooligans joined with pro-Western activists during the October 2000 revolution against the government. Hooligans this time provided much of the human mass that stormed government buildings on Oct. 5, helping usher a nominally pro-Western Serbia. The role of the soccer hooligans in the 2000 anti-Milosevic revolution illustrated to the much smaller neo-fascist groups the power that organized violence can have in Serbia. In the last ten years, an evolution of these groups has occurred and they now blend their membership with that of the infamous Serbian soccer hooligans. The hooligans are no longer relegated as guns for hire; they have an organizational capacity of their own under the umbrella of neo-fascist groups like Obraz, 1389 and Nasi (named for the pro-Kremlin Russian Nashi youth movement, from which they receive support). The neo-fascist groups, therefore, provide the hooligans and disaffected youth with the ideology and leadership they crave.

The neo-fascist groups illustrated this organizational capacity on the streets of Belgrade during the drawn-out clashes, which were coordinated to spread thin the 5,600 police officers and prolong the mayhem for as long as possible. According to STRATFOR sources with considerable experience in anti-government protests in Belgrade, the rioters exhibited remarkable coordination in their attacks on “soft targets” around the town to continuously distract and dislocate law enforcement officials while staying well clear of the actual gay pride parade, which was heavily guarded. The sources also indicated the rioters knew exactly which avenues and streets in which they should concentrate their activities, allowing themselves ample maneuverability via side streets in case of a police counterattack. The groups had not previously been thought capable of this kind of discipline, which is usually drawn from strong leadership able to outline goals and enforce orders both before and during the riot, and thus control the violence in a way that seeks to accomplish its goals and steer the event throughout the day. An estimated 60 percent of the rioters were brought in from outside of Belgrade, showing an organizational capacity that extends beyond the capital with a network of operatives throughout Serbia. This is also symbolically important as it was only when activists were able to extend the movement beyond the large cities that anti-Milosevic protests became serious. The ability to organize a protest and recruit activists across the country also illustrates a competent level of funding.

The danger for Serbia is that mainstream right-wing nationalist parties, which have recently had serious political setbacks, could seek to enlist the ultra-right wing movements for their energy and grassroots organizational abilities. Previous governments led by nationalist parties have referred to the right-wing movements as “Serbian youth” instead of as hooligans or rioters and excused events such as the burning of the U.S. Embassy in 2008 as an understandable expression of societal angst that can only be blamed on the West itself. One prominent member of the government at the time claimed that the West cannot complain about “a few broken windows when it destroyed our country.” The nationalist parties have a history of trying to co-opt elements of the neo-fascist groups and could try to do so again largely because they have never had real grassroots activists of their own — as is the case of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) — or they have lost their own grassroots activists through the splintering of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), whose more popular spin-off, the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), is now a pro-EU conservative party willing to work with the ruling DS.

The political maturity of the established right-wing nationalist parties that have held power recently in post-Milosevic Serbia, coupled with the energy and capability of neo-fascist groups — at least one of which has the support of the pro-Kremlin Russian Nashi movement — could create a successful combination in Serbian politics. The current government is already facing setbacks on EU integration due to lack of European unity on approving Serbia’s candidacy as well as a severe economic crisis, both of which provide ample fuel for a rise of a new force in Serbian politics.

The stability of the Serbian state is significant to the United States and European Union because the periodic convulsions of violence in the Balkans have long forced the rest of the world to pay attention. Indeed, a plea for stability is essentially the purpose of Clinton’s visit, as Washington has more pressing concerns to deal with in the Middle East, South Asia and the Russian resurgence. (Clinton has offered Washington’s symbolic support for Serbia’s EU integration but has not given Belgrade any concrete incentives to maintain the peace, which the United States largely does not have to offer.) However, the convenience and availability of outside powers are not a consideration for the Balkans when the region descends into violence, which very often means that Europe, the United States, Russia and Turkey can get drawn into its affairs whether they want to or not. And while in the 1990s the West may have had the luxury of intervening in the region for lack of opposing forces, namely Russia, the decade ahead may be considerably different, particularly when one considers the greater role that Turkey and Russia now play in the Balkans, and an ultranationalist Serbia could wreck havoc on European and U.S. priorities.