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The beginning of the EU membership talks in January 2014 was a milestone in Serbia's foreign policy. Perceived for years by the West as a "Balkan bad boy," Belgrade made a significant step towards changing this image. It was the greatest achievement of the coalition government, consisting of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) of Aleksandar Vucic and the Socialist Party (SPS) of Ivica Dacic. However, taking into consideration the pasts of these two leaders, this success is an excellent example of historical irony. A decade ago Dacic, an ex-protege of Slobodan Milosevic, and Vucic, former member of the far right Serbian Radical Party (SRS), were light years away from the EU.
Nowadays in the Serbian parliament there is no political party opposed to the idea of European integration, but this does not mean that process will go smoothly. Serbia has a large number of economic and political problems that need to be resolved before accession. First is the Kosovo issue. In spite of the Nobel Peace Prize nomination for the architects of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, there is still a lot of work to be done. Second is the turbulent nature of Serbia's relations with Croatia. Zagreb may block Belgrade's negotiations with Brussels to gain an advantage in bilateral disputes with its neighbour, as Slovenia did when Croatia's negotiations were ongoing. Third is the handful of internal problems, mainly economic, that Serbia is struggling with. These include the 20% unemployment rate, corruption, over-employment in the public sector, and more. Fourth is Serbia's cool social attitude towards the EU and the West (NATO in particular). Serbs still remember the 1999 NATO bombings and blame West for Kosovo's secession. Serbs are thus, in their sympathies, rather Russia-oriented. At the same time, looking from Brussels, "enlargement fatigue" in Western Europe and the rise of right-wing political parties make further expansion of the EU increasingly difficult.
Relations with Neighbours
For many years, cooperation with The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had been a key to Serbia's dialogue with the EU. Since the capture of last high profile war criminals in May 2011, the normalisation of relations with Kosovo "became the key condition of Serbia's EU integration."1 Although no political party in Serbia claims readiness to recognise Kosovo's independence,...