Expert: Serbia Cannot Remain Isolated Island, Cannot Go East

Ivan Vejvoda/BETAPHOTO/NENAD PETROVIC/

European Future project director and senior associate of the Institute for Social Sciences in Vienna Ivan Vejovoda has said that Serbia must not allow itself to become an isolated island in the new geopolitical reality created by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In an interview with the Novi Magazine weekly Vejvoda said that Serbia could not go East, regardless of who made up the ruling coalition on the level of the republic and regardless of the sympathies that the majority of Serbian citizens had toward Russia.

"Serbia never went East historically. We were always oriented toward Europe. If we were to choose the East, that could be compared to Albania's decision in the 1960s when they severed relations with the Soviet Union, approached China and became a completely isolated, closed island under a totalitarian regime," Vejvoda said. He added that this was not possible today and that Serbia lived off of economic relations with the West.

"Two-thirds of exports and investments come from EU states. Relations with the rest of the world - Russia, China and the U.S. - combined are not on the level of Serbia's relations with the EU. This only shows that we are inseparably linked to the EU and its members. Whoever is in power must face this reality, and that is that we live and our economy depends on strong economic ties to the EU and there is no other path for Serbia than the European path. The choice is between integrating with the EU and isolation - we are surrounded by members of the EU and NATO on almost all of our borders," he said.