A healthcare professional carries boxes of the Sinopharm Group Co Ltd. Covid-19 vaccine at a vaccination site at the Belgrade Fair exhibition center on January 19.
Photographer: Oliver Bunic / Bloomberg
Photographer: Oliver Bunic / Bloomberg
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic puts his country’s status as the leader of continental Europe in applying vaccines to one thing: looking east and also looking west.
The Balkan country may seem like an unlikely success story, as the neighboring European Union is mired in a vaccine fiasco. However, Serbia’s history of balancing its geopolitical interests is bearing fruit at a critical time.
Serbia has been an important bridge for China to gain presence in Europe, although the country is also a traditional ally of Russia and aspires to join the EU. These relationships made it possible to diversify the sources of vaccines and inoculate a greater proportion of its population than any other nation in Europe after the United Kingdom, Serbia injected 6.8% of its 7 million inhabitants, more than double the proportion in the EU.
Most of the 1.1 million doses imported by the government in Belgrade so far have come from Sinopharm, supported by the State of China. Vucic says his refusal to join a chorus of leaders criticizing China at a security conference in Germany helped him establish good relations with Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Aleksandar Vucic meets Chen Bo and members of China’s medical expert team in Belgrade on May 1, 2020.
Photographer: Shi Zhongyu / Xinhua / Getty Images
“I was the only one who didn’t accuse China of anything, so we had a fraternal meeting – the Foreign Minister and me – and since then Chinese support has started for us, in relation to the coronavirus and everything,” said Vucic in a statement address to the nation last week.
The rapid launch of injections to combat Covid-19 in relation to the EU highlights the tension across the continent, as well as the potential geopolitical consequences in its most volatile region. The Serbian approach already has its followers within the EU: neighboring Hungary he became the first member of the bloc to approve shots fired by Russia and China.
Serbia’s goal is to join the EU, although with an electorate already divided on membership, the pandemic is in danger of 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 become geopolitics in Europe’s most volatile region
The EU has promised to give six potential members in the Western Balkans – including Serbia – 70 million euros ($ 85 million) to buy doses of Covid, but deliveries are facing delays. Instead of waiting for EU aid, Belgrade obtained a vaccine directly from China, Russia and the USA.
French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged the problems Europe is facing in launching vaccine programs before lunch with Vucic in Paris on Monday. “I would have liked France and Europe to be more present on your side on the topic of vaccines,” Macron told Vucic and a group of reporters. “We Europeans must be even more efficient at this.”
Europe’s first winners
Serbia only follows the UK in vaccinating its people
Source: Bloomberg
Former information minister of the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic, Vucic asked for favors when the Covid-19 crisis began, securing fans and protective equipment in the early stages of contagion. He then ordered vaccines from three suppliers: Sinopharm, Russia’s Gamaleya and Pfizer-BioNTech.
The details of Chinese and Russian vaccines are less transparent than Western vaccines, although health officials in Serbia have sought to assure citizens that all vaccines in use are safe and effective.
A week ago, Vucic said he met with the Chinese ambassador and “literally begged her” for more deliveries. “Knowing President Xi, I believe that before May or June we will receive significant quantities of new vaccines from China.” Serbia is also looking to start local production of the Russian vaccine.
The Serbian leader controls the government and strengthened control of power in the 2020 elections with a overwhelming victory, amid a boycott of some opposition parties that accuse him of autocracy. His proposal for voters, however, includes his ability to establish relationships across the geopolitical spectrum, regardless of the penalties he may cause along the way.
In June, Vucic was condemned by 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 of aid and investment to Serbia, as “a fairy tale on paper”.
Sinopharm Group Co Ltd. vaccine delivered to Nikola Tesla Airport in Belgrade on 16 January.
Photographer: Oliver Bunic / Bloomberg
The supply of vaccines to Serbia represents an important geopolitical victory for China, as it faces a less rebellious and more Sino-skeptical West under the government of US President Joe Biden. In recent years, China has focused infrastructure investments in the Balkans through its Belt and Road Initiative, including a rail link between Belgrade and Budapest, Hungary.
There is a perception that China is better prepared to help than the EU, said Faris Kocan, foreign policy researcher at the University of Ljubljana. “It all started with a diplomatic mask and the narrative continues with vaccines, despite the fact that the Balkan nations are strategically dependent on the EU,” he said.
Health professionals outside the vaccination booths at the Belgrade Fair exhibition center on 19 January. Serbia has contracts for 6.5 million vaccines.
Photographer: Oliver Bunic / Bloomberg
Serbia started vaccinating on December 24, days before the EU. It has contracts for 6.5 million vaccines, but the global vaccine race is undermining confidence that business will be honored, said Vucic. No vaccine came through the multinational Covax initiative, which the Balkan state has also adhered to since the beginning.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel held Crisis talks on Monday with pharmaceutical executives and European Commission officials as part of efforts to accelerate the vaccination boost against stuttering. The 27 EU states collectively inoculated 2.9% of the population compared to 14.7% in the UK and 10% in the United States, according to Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker.
“People in the EU are good, but luckily I had enough experience and knowledge to assume it would be like that,” said Vucic. “This is a war for people’s lives, but also for the future of each country.”
– With the help of Ania Nussbaum, Peter Martin, Andrew Langley and Jan Bratanic