15.07.2021 – 15:24
The close to ecstatic relationship between the two states and between their two leaders is a matter of mutual interest. But when these special relations cross the normal boundaries of relations between the two states and make the objective of the alliance and their joint intervention third states and their vital interests, then this is not with their bilateral issues, but is a regional and European concern. .
This is the deduction of the visit and talks of the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, to Belgrade on July 8, and of the astonishing political and diplomatic theses and platform he launched for the Western Balkans in the emphasis on Hungarian-Serbian love, which touch and directly affect the interests of the states and peoples of the Western Balkans, including Albania.
At a joint press conference with Serbian President Vuçi., The Hungarian Prime Minister issued two theses harmful to regional relations, the dynamics of the cooperation process in the Western Balkans and especially the European integration of this micro-region.
The first harmful thesis of the Hungarian Prime Minister was that Serbia is the key state of the region, it is the central state and every region has a central state to follow. He defined Serbia as the key to stability in the Western Balkans, which he said should be considered a priority by the EU.
It is true on the verge of a diplomatic scandal that the prime minister of a NATO member states that Serbia is the key to stability for three NATO member states in the Western Balkans, namely Albania, Montenegro and northern Macedonia. According to Orban, stability in this micro-region was not guaranteed by the Atlantic Alliance, which even has its troops in Kosovo, but by Serbia, Russia’s strategic and military ally, and which has an official anti-Atlantic policy.
We do not know on the basis of which international treaty or international statute or international status finds the right of the Prime Minister of Hungary to appoint Serbia as tutor of the Western Balkans and the three NATO member states in this micro-region. Hungary, led by Viktor Orban, is far from the quota of economic, political, diplomatic, military, demographic, etc. to take the position of decision-maker on power relations and development dynamics in the Western Balkans and to dictate to the states of this micro-region which state they should recognize as the center and leaders of the region. We think that there is no government and diplomacy in the Western Balkans, which does not know that Hungary with ten million inhabitants is not a decision-maker in either the EU or NATO.
It is not clear by what diplomatic and security logic the Prime Minister of Hungary gives Belgrade the responsibility and the honorary diploma of regional stability, when Serbia is the main generator of tensions and conflicts in the Western Balkans, the fires of which were blown every day in Kosovo and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Currently, even on the day Viktor Orban spoke in Belgrade, Serbia has strained relations due to its brutal interference in the internal affairs of three Western Balkan countries, Montenegro, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbia, Orban’s “key to stability”, intervened in a coup attempt in Montenegro in 2016 to stop the country from joining NATO.
Serbia staged riots in Montenegro in 2019 to maintain the power of the Serbian Orthodox Church in that country. Serbia intervened and organized riots in 2017 in northern Macedonia to stop that country from accepting the Prespa Agreement and joining NATO. On the eve of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s visit to Belgrade, Serbian President Vuuiç harshly attacked Montenegro and Kosovo for adopting resolutions condemning the Serbian genocide in Srebrenica in their parliaments.
President Vuçiç, as a former minister of Milosevic’s war criminal cabinet, today defends Serbian aggression against non-Serb peoples and violates the ruling of the International Court of Justice, which has declared the Srebrenica massacre genocide, and the European Parliament has adopted a resolution. special in 2009.
The second even more damaging thesis, announced by the Hungarian Prime Minister in Belgrade on July 8 and openly violating the European integration interests of the Western Balkan countries, is his statement that “Until Serbia integrates into the EU, the Western Balkans will not integrates ”. On July 9, “budapesttime.hu” echoed the prime minister’s speech in his thesis that “EU enlargement is impossible without Serbia.”
It is such a flagrant anti-European and anti-Balkan thesis, which categorically declares that no country in the Western Balkans will join the EU before Serbia does. The Hungarian Prime Minister links the fate of the European integration of the Western Balkan countries with Serbia, and seeks to codify the Serbian hegemonic formula that the path of the Western Balkan countries to the EU passes through Belgrade.
Orban even went so far as to state that “the EU needs Serbia more than Serbia needs the EU.” Two days before leaving for Belgrade, the Hungarian prime minister on July 6th paid for the publication of an advertisement with his signature in the German daily with the largest circulation, asking the EU to accept Serbia as a member.
Prior to that, the Hungarian Prime Minister had paid for the publication in the most popular European newspapers of an advertisement with his signature, where he called for Serbia to be admitted to the EU. The Hungarian Prime Minister is taking an unusual step for Serbia, which he has not done for any Balkan NATO member state that joined the EU after Hungary, such as Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia.
In addition, the Hungarian prime minister’s thesis contains an unusual diplomatic and state threat to the aspiring Balkan countries for EU membership. This is the Budapest veto, which is expected to be used to stop any Balkan-Western state that meets the conditions for EU membership before Serbia. Because only with the Budapest veto can other countries be barred from entering the EU before Serbia.
The Hungarian veto appears to be threatening to block the EU membership of Albania, Montenegro and northern Macedonia, three NATO member states that are also EU candidate countries. Of the four Western Balkan countries with EU candidate status, the most advanced on the path to accession is Montenegro, which has been estimated in Brussels to be the first country to be admitted to the EU out of six the countries of the Western Balkans. Now the Hungarian Prime Minister comes out and warns that he will use his veto to stop all the Western Balkan countries that dare to enter the EU before Serbia.
It is a paradoxical and unimaginable attitude, which has never happened with the process of European integration in the EU. There have been vetoes and blockades by an EU member state against an aspiring state due to conflicts and problems in bilateral relations. But there has never been a global or bloc veto of an EU member state against a group of aspiring states, not for problems or conflicts with the member state, but simply for the Hungarian prime minister’s diplomatic whim for Serbia to become a member before others.
The danger of the strange thesis of blocking the European integration of all Western Balkan countries for the sake of Serbia is that it blackmails the EU into mechanically accepting Serbia because it wants the Hungarian prime minister and forgiving Belgrade all its anti-European and anti-Atlantic sins.
To forgive that Serbia has not fulfilled the conditions and requirements of the chapters of the EU Accession Treaty and is immersed in authoritarianism and lack of democratic freedoms, media and expression. To forgive Serbia for refusing to join EU sanctions on Russia for aggression against Ukraine, to forgive Serbia for welcoming the violent Russian annexation of Crimea, that Serbia is conducting a dizzying arms race with sophisticated Russian weapons, which has provided military bases in Russia and organizes regular military maneuvers with Russian military forces on Serbian territory.
The Prime Minister of Hungary, a NATO member state, should know that Serbia is arming itself primarily against NATO member states in the Balkans. Viktor Orban has given his personal contribution in this regard, allowing the contingents of Russian tanks destined for Serbia to pass through the territory of Hungary.
The Hungarian Prime Minister’s strange new Balkan platform neglects the reality that three Western Balkan countries are members of NATO, Albania, Montenegro and Northern Macedonia.
The new paradox is that Hungary, a NATO country, threatens to block their European integration and appoints Serbia as the region’s tutor. This Hungarian diplomatic blackmail is against NATO interests in the region. Undoubtedly, the Hungarian Prime Minister knows Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, but it does not seem that he and his cabinet have ever thought about how Hungary will behave if Serbia enters into an armed conflict with one of the three NATO countries in The Western Balkans. It is of strategic interest to know whether it will align itself with the three NATO member states, as it has an Atlantic obligation, or it will align itself with Serbia, as the Hungarian Prime Minister’s diplomatic mind and love tends.
Viktor Orban’s anti-Balkan platform and theses could not but evoke euphoria in Serbian President Vuçiç, who received the fake Hungarian diploma of Serbian domination of the Western Balkans. Vuçi tent tried to reciprocate by granting Hungary a special role in the Western Balkans, stating on July 8th that Hungary has an extremely stabilizing role in political and economic stability in the Western Balkans. It is a diplomatic hyperbole, which has no basis, because Hungary has no role in the political and economic stability of the Western Balkans and it is guaranteed by the EU and NATO.
The reasons, motives, and interests that push the Hungarian Prime Minister to design a harmful and dangerous Balkan platform can be many, personal, local, regional or international. But it is an anti-historical and anti-historical imposition of Balkan politics and Hungarian foreign policy, which has no chance of acceptance or success in the Western Balkan countries, which are tired of the medieval myths, projects and fantasies of creating Balkan groups. under the leadership of Serbia.
The Hungarian Prime Minister has the personal right to worship President Vuçi dhe and Serbia, but he has no right to obstruct the European journey of the Western Balkan countries. The Hungarian organ policysolutions.hu wrote that in a broader context of the Western Balkans, Orban’s friendship with Vuçi. Has a number of significant implications for the region’s policies. “Both leaders have sought to strengthen the positions of their respective states as dominant actors within the Western Balkans region.”
The Hungarian prime minister’s unusual diplomatic love affair with the Serbian president and the occult interests behind it have raised suspicions in the EU and beyond. This climate of doubt about the “Hungarian-Serbian special friendship” is so widespread in the EU that Serbian President Vucic acknowledged this truth of European suspicion when he addressed Orban on July 8 that “Few people like you are ready to face criticism for because of Serbia ”.
What Vucic does not say is that in the decision-making circles of the EU and NATO, according to diplomatic sources, there are many doubts that the ecstasy of the unusual governmental and personal friendship between Orban and Vucic could be an inspiration of Russia, which has the need to disguise its strategy of Balkan intervention through an alliance between Serbia and a Moscow-led NATO member state, such as the current Hungarian government.
Here is the opportunity to highlight some emphases in our foreign policy, which should not measure today’s relations with Hungary only with the cavalry events of the 15th century. Because there was a Spurdjjak foreign minister, who suggested Albania’s strategic alliance with the government of Orban, confusing Orban with Janos Hunyadi. Governments and interests move and the pro-Serbian government of Viktor Orban is worth a protest for his harmful anti-Balkan theses, which affect the basic interests of Albania./Dita
