Today, civil society in Serbia is isolated and discouraged amidst a nationalist backlash after Kosovo’s declaration of independence. As a recent report by the Pontis Foundation points out, civil society remains introverted and lacks legitimacy in the eyes of many citizens. As such, civil society in Serbia surely deserves more EU support. Still, it would be wrong of the EU to shift its support as much on civil society as Sonja Biserko suggests. The value shift which is certainly necessary in Serbia is a long-term project and can only come about if the focus of political debate moves away from Kosovo and the obsession with territory and identity.
Such a shift can only occur if the EU continues working with political elites. While I agree with Sonja Biserko that many politicians, including those from democratic or pro-European parties have been unwilling to break with the nationalist logic which has prevailed in Serbia for the last twenty years, the EU cannot afford not to engage this elite. Serbia will only join the EU if the political elite is committed to this goal. The choices elites make depends on the incentive structure and the larger political agenda. The transformation Croatia has experienced since Ivo Sanader put the nationalist HDZ on a pro-European course is instructive as to how conservative elites change the political debate and abandon the nationalist logic of fear and territory. Serbia and its elite needs the incentives to change and re-focus its political energy. Today, EU membership is simply too far away to accomplish this. As a result, the EU needs to reconsider its strategy and offer concrete and intermediate goalposts which re-energise Serbia’s path to EU integration.
Sonja Biserko is right, however, that the EU should place a lot more emphasis on education. Talking with elites to resolve the latest conflict for more than 15 years, the EU (and others) have shamefully neglected education. In the mean time a new generation has come of age which has hardly travelled abroad, not experienced interethnic coexistence and been exposed to nationalist paranoia: According to a 2004 UNDP study 20-23 year-olds display the highest level of ethnocentrism in Serbia. This legacy, however, cannot be challenged by alternative educational systems, but only by reforming the existing education system. State-run schools and universities will shape the intellectual and political climate of Serbia. Thus, they need to be reformed. In many university departments there are young professors who want to break the mould of isolation and inertia and they deserve more EU support. Students need to be able to study easily in the EU: Serbia needs to be fully incorporate in Erasmus and all other EU exchange programs. Even more, there needs to be support for these students to return to Serbia. With many students wanting to leave the country for good, the opportunity to study abroad otherwise risks compounding the brain drain to which Serbia has lost already hundreds of thousands since 1991.
Serbia’s youth does not only need to be linked to the EU, but also re-integrated in the region. A number of regional programs and universities, including the EU-funded Regional Masters on Human and Democratisation in Sarajevo and Central European University where I have had the pleasure to teach, have been key in educating a new generation and forging friendships across mental and physical borders. To date the numbers of students who have gone through such an education has been too small and there is a definite need for further regional centres of excellence.
Beyond education, the EU needs to engage with society directly. Just like the EU Special Representative Miroslav Lajčak in Bosnia recently launched a direct communication strategy (including the website www.reci.ba), the EU in Serbia has to explain to citizens a) what EU integration means, b) which values it stands for and c) what Serbia needs to do to join. In the past the EU, has often not bothered to explain why citizens still need a visa to travel to the EU, why EU integration is so slow and why Serbia has to extradite indicted war criminals.
The EU needs a new strategy to integrate Serbia. This cannot succeed without engaging with existing elites, communicating to citizens in order to keep up pressure on these elites and promoting the education of the next generation to bring about a value shift.