Ethnic Mobilization in Serbia - EURAC

5. Effects of EU Policies on Ethnic Mobilization in Serbia
The effects of various EU (formerly the European Community, EC) 47 actions with
respect to the crisis in the former Yugoslavia have undoubtedly impinged on the
positions of political protagonists, especially the Serbian authorities. Nonetheless,
these effects differed greatly from those stemming from Serbia’s relations with the
UN, the USA, Russia and other international actors.
The former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) was not a
member of the EC in 1991. Although the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY,
comprising Serbia and Montenegro) was under a total UN embargo and its UN
membership was suspended in 1992, the regime in Serbia insisted that the FRY had
continued the SFRY’s membership in this organization. It, however, employed a
totally different strategy vis-à-vis the European integration process personified in
the European Union. Notably, after 1991, the regime, the intellectuals who
supported it, and government-controlled media, minimized the role of the EU as an
institutional framework, focusing their rhetoric on specific EU member-states.
Germany took the brunt of the attack because of its role in the Yugoslav crisis. The
Serbian regime made extensive use of the position of some EU member-states on
the disintegration of the SFRY and their recognition of the states that emerged in
its territory to fuel the process of ethnic mobilization. The authorities invoked the
fact that the EU (like the vast majority of other international actors) accepted the
theory of dissolution of SFRY (contrary to the theory of secession advocated by the
Serbian authorities) as proof that the Western European countries have chosen to
punish Serbia. During their fiercest ethnic mobilization campaigns, the authorities
insisted on the thesis that these countries, under the predominant influence of
Germany and the Vatican, were conducting an anti-Serbian policy and supporting
the obliteration and disappearance of Serbs living in Croatia and Bosnia-
Herzegovina. Although the sanctions the EU introduced against Serbia (FRY) were
mostly economic in character, the Serbian authorities sidelined this fact and
presented the EU’s policy on Serbia as the expression of its hostility towards the
Serbian people. 48
To recall, the United States initially did not have a clear stand on the
Yugoslav crisis. This is the reason the Serbian leadership used the moves by the
European institutions to finalize ethnic mobilization and justify its policy,
especially in the 1991-1992 period. In this project, Milošević’s regime made
maximum use of the negative and painful memories of WWII, and the role some
European countries had played in it. Needless to say, Germany was its main
target. 49 Nearly every move by the EU, including those that did not entail
pressures on or punishment of the Serbs, was portrayed as a conspiracy of Croatia’s
‘allies’. This approach became dominant especially after the European countries
decided to recognize the former republics that had opted for independence (in late
1991 and early 1992). 50
47 The terms EU and EC as used as synonyms throughout this text.
48 The Serbian regime simultaneously launched the thesis that economic cooperation with
the EU was not a priority and that Serbia should foster economic ties with Russia, China and
other non-European countries. The echo of such political demagogy still reverberates
amongst extremist right parties in Serbia, notably the Serbian Radical Party.
49 ”It seems their prime interest is that we no longer exist in any form», Borisav Jović,
Poslednji dani SFRJ – izvodi iz dnevnika (Last Days of the SFRY – Excerpts from a Diary)
(Belgrade, 1995), 361.
50 Even extremely bizarre elements, like the song sung on Croatian TV and expressing
gratitude to Germany for all it had done to support Croatia's independence, were used to
fuel such feelings against Western European states and to mobilize the public to support
Milošević's war policy.
24