A healthcare worker transports boxes of Sinopharm Group Co Ltd. Covid-19 vaccine to a vaccination site in the Belgrade Fair on January 19.
Photographer: Oliver Bunic / Bloomberg
Photographer: Oliver Bunic / Bloomberg
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic puts his country’s status at the forefront of continental Europe in terms of vaccines in humans for one thing: to look east and west.
The Balkan country may seem an unlikely success story, as the neighboring European Union is stuck in a vaccination fiasco. However, Serbia’s history of balancing its geopolitical interests is bearing fruit at a critical time.
Serbia was an important bridge for China to win one is in Europe, while the country is also a traditional ally of Russia and aspires to join the EU. These relationships allowed him to diversify vaccine sources and inoculate a a larger proportion of its population than any other nation in Europe after Britain injected 6.8% of its 7 million inhabitants, more than double the EU ratio.
Most of the 1.1 million doses imported by the government into Belgrade so far come from China-backed Sinopharm. Vucic says his refusal to join a chorus of leaders criticizing China at a security conference in Germany has helped him establish good relations with Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Aleksandar Vucic meets with Chen Bo and members of the Chinese team of medical experts in Belgrade on May 1, 2020.
Photographer: Shi Zhongyu / Xinhua / Getty Images
“I was the only one who did not accuse China of anything, so we had a fraternal meeting – the foreign minister and me – and since then Chinese support has started for us, regarding the coronavirus and everything else,” Vucic said in -a TV. the nation’s address last week.
The rapid launch of injections to combat Covid-19 in relation to the EU emphasizes tension on the continent and also the potential geopolitical consequences in its most volatile region. Already, the Serbian approach has its followers in the EU: neighboring Hungary became the first member of the bloc to approve the shootings by Russia and China.
Serbia’s goal is to join the EU, although with an already divided electorate in terms of membership, the pandemic risks pushing the country into the orbit of rival powers. Meanwhile, Belgrade has promised vaccine donations to Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, again exposing the divisions in the former Yugoslavia that fueled the bloody wars of the 1990s.
Read more: Vaccines turn into geopolitics in Europe’s most volatile region
The EU has pledged to provide six future members of the Western Balkans – including Serbia – with 70m euros ($ 85m) to buy Covid shots, but deliveries are delayed. Instead of waiting for EU help, Belgrade provided the vaccine directly from China, Russia and the United States.
French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged Europe’s problems with launching vaccination programs ahead of a lunch with Vucic in Paris on Monday. “I wish France and Europe had been more present on your side on vaccines,” Macron told Vucic and a group of reporters. “We Europeans need to be even more efficient in this.”
The early winners of Europe
Serbia is only targeting the UK in vaccinating its population
Source: Bloomberg
Former Minister of Information to the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic, Vucic asked for favors when the Covid-19 crisis began, providing fans and protective equipment in the early stages of the contagion. He then ordered vaccines from three suppliers: Sinopharm, Gamaleya of Russia and Pfizer-BioNTech.
Details of Chinese and Russian vaccines are less transparent than Western ones, although Serbian health authorities have tried to reassure citizens that all vaccines used are safe and effective.
One week ago, Vucic said he met with the Chinese ambassador and “literally begged” for several deliveries. “Knowing President Xi, I believe that before May or June we will receive significant quantities of new vaccines from China.” Serbia is also now trying to start local production of the Russian vaccine.
The Serbian leader controls the government and gathered his power in the 2020 elections with a slippery victory, amid a boycott of opposition parties accusing him of autocracy. His presentation to voters, however, includes his ability to link relationships across the geopolitical spectrum, regardless of the feathers he might struggle along the way.
In June, Vucic condemned pro-EU politicians for kissing the Chinese flag when a plane delivered medical equipment from Beijing to Belgrade. At the time, he described the EU’s promise of solidarity, by far the largest contributor to aid and investment to Serbia, as “a fairy tale on paper”.
The Sinopharm Group Co Ltd. vaccine was delivered to Nikola Tesla Airport in Belgrade on January 16.
Photographer: Oliver Bunic / Bloomberg
The supply of vaccines to Serbia offers an important geopolitical victory for China, as it faces a less troubled and more sino-skeptical West under US President Joe Biden. In recent years, China has focused its investments on infrastructure in the Balkans through its Belt and Road Initiative, including a rail link between Belgrade and Budapest in Hungary.
There is a perception that China is better prepared to help than the EU, he said Faris Kocan, foreign policy researcher at the University of Ljubljana. “It started with mask diplomacy and the narrative continues with vaccines, despite the fact that the Balkan nations are strategically dependent on the EU,” he said.
Health workers outside the vaccination booths at the exhibition center in the Belgrade Fair on January 19, Serbia has contracts for 6.5 million vaccines.
Photographer: Oliver Bunic / Bloomberg
Serbia began vaccinating on December 24, a few days before the EU. He has contracts for 6.5 million vaccines, but the global fight for jabs is hurting confidence that the agreements will be honored, Vucic said. No vaccine came through the Covax multinational initiative, which the Balkan state joined in time.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel held The crisis is being discussed on Monday with pharmaceutical directors and European Commission officials as part of efforts to speed up stuttering vaccination. The 27 EU states collectively inoculated 2.9% of the population, compared to 14.7% in the UK and 10% in the US, according to Bloomberg Vaccine tracking.
“People in the EU are good people, but fortunately we have had enough experience and knowledge to assume that this will happen,” Vucic said. “This is a war for people’s lives, but also for the future of each country.”
– With the assistance of Ania Nussbaum, Peter Martin, Andrew Langley and Jan Bratanic