Serbia en la UE, un camino lleno de obstáculos

The gamble of former ultranationalist turned pro-EU Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić paid off — calling a snap election two years early saw him return to power with another landslide.

But now that he’s won a four-year mandate, Vučić has to prepare Serbia for EU membership. While Vučić insists he is committed to reform and repairing relations in the neighborhood, opponents claimed in the campaign that his re-election would lead to greater centralization of power and a slide towards authoritarianism.

Serbia has lagged the reform efforts of much of the rest of the post-communist world, and that means politically painful changes — but without them Serbia stands no chance of joining fellow former Yugoslav republics Slovenia and Croatia in the EU.

Although the opposition is too small and fractured to pose any threat to the prime minister, the nationalism that helped tear apart the region in the Yugoslav wars isn’t dead yet. Gains for ultra-nationalists favoring “integration” with Russia, brings a hard-line rhetoric back to parliament.

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