Balkans get screwed yet again
Hey comrades & comradesses curious folks who are always so thirsty for news from Other Countries That Don't Matter! Not sure if this has passed through the dense sieve of 24/7 Black-Friday- / Holidays- / Ferguson- / Congress-shenanigans-obsessed news cycle at your place, but, as annoying as that may seem to some, there are events happening elsewhere in the world. Like this one:
Putin's Surprise Call to Scrap South Stream Gas Pipeline Leaves Europe Reeling
Basically, Russia has scrapped its plans to build a gas pipeline across the Black Sea to Bulgaria, which was supposed to supply Central Europe with energy. Now they'll be opting for a cheaper route through Turkey, which already hosts one such pipeline. This came after a long period of pressure from the EU on countries like Bulgaria, citing things like "you're not building the pipeline according to our requirements". In essence, this has been a geopolitical game from the get-go. Now Putin is citing the crumbling ruble and the subsequent steep price of the project as his main reason for the decision, but he also mentioned Europe's behavior as one of the factors for this outcome.
As of now, our politicians are in disarray. My country has always been divided along Russophile/Russophobe lines (among many other divisions), but now things are gonna get a bit uglier than usual, I suspect. Meanwhile, some are bemoaning the fact that tiny countries like mine (and Serbia, and Hungary, and Austria) have become pawns in a bigger geopolitical struggle between East and West - yet again. Some are even going so far as to demand compensation from either Russia or Europe (depending on which side of the divide they're on). That's a fantasy, of course. No one cares about tiny countries like mine - we're just a pawn, have always been and will always be. And no one will compensate us for the missed benefits from building such a serious project with huge long-term geopolitical effects. Because we don't matter, beyond our role as a pawn, a launching-pad, or cannon-fodder. Not to mention that our new/old rulers have always been Brussels' and Washington's loyal puppy, the way the ones preceding them have always been Moscow's loyal puppies. We've lost geopolitical influence once again without putting up a fight, and there's almost none left at this point. And we're to blame for that, as much as Europe and Russia are - if not more.
Some more read on the matter:
Russia's South Stream Project Closure Result of Pressure: White House
"According to a US National Security Council spokesperson, Russia's decision to stop the South Stream project was reasoned by pressure on Russia from different factors, including sanctions."
Well, of course as always, the US is the one sitting back watching from a safe distance and rubbing their hands in delight from the whole situation. Because now Europe will have to look for other options to "diversify" its energy supply, and guess who? It's America who's offering a noble hand, proposing to help their minions partners from across the Big Water with - guess what? - shale gas indeed! How convenient.
Turkey also wins from this. They used to be a geopolitical rival of Russia, but now that they've decided to assert a new, unique role of their own as a bridge between East and West, and are finally not treating themselves as a mere appendix to the West, they're prepared to make their own decisions, and they've figured it'd be in their interests to play with both teams. Russia, in this case, is desperate to keep its channels of projecting geopolitical influence (like energy resources), and they've found a new ally in Turkey in this respect (beside China, but that's a whole other story). Turkey's interest is to emancipate itself from reluctant Europe, which has been flipping the bird into Ankara's face for, like, ever. Ultimately, Europe is the big loser here (and especially tiny insignificant countries like mine).
The most annoying part here is, unlike other tiny countries, we not only fail to protect our own national interests time and time again, but we deliberately keep shooting ourselves in the foot, and handing our ass on a silver plate to whoever is interested shagging us from behind. Want proof? Well, you asked:
Commissioner says EU stance on South Stream protected European consumers
And she's currently our most trusted and respected politician, mind you. Essentially, she's waving the white flag before the battle has even been officially declared over. What more can I say? If we can't respect ourselves enough to assert our own interests, how can we expect others to?
Meanwhile, Putin/Erdogan's meeting in Ankara has revealed their new joint plan of strategic cooperation. Here's what follows from there:
- Turkey becomes the second largest importer of Russian gas after Germany: 27 billion m3.
- Turkey is granted delicious preferential prices for that gas.
- RosAtom gets a status of special strategic investor in Turkey, which by the Turkish law automatically means a tax reduction from 20% down to 2%.
- Turkey builds a nuclear power station with 7 1000kWh Russian reactors - something we canceled too, again under pressure from the West.
- Putin commends Ankara for refusing to participate in the anti-Russian sanctions, and promises to import the Turkish agrarian surplus production on the Russian market, thus showing the middle finger to the EU and their attempts to starve Russia out.
- And of course, Russia builds yet another energy supply line across Turkey, instead of going through pesky Ukraine or unreliable Bulgaria. Congrats, Europe!
Just as an aside, to add some more flesh to the context: A couple days ago, Erdogan sharply scolded Obama for interfering in Turkish matters, saying he won't tolerate someone meddling into Turkey's affairs from 12,000 km away, and categorically refused to give Turkey's territory and air space to NATO for air strikes on ISIS. He's playing a double (or maybe even triple) game, even though Turkey is a NATO member. Why? Because he doesn't want to pick any one particular side and stick with it at the expense of its relations with all other sides. Why? Because Turkey is not in North America, it's right next door to Iraq and Russia, so he'll have to tread carefully there. It's easy to criticize and preach to Turkey about consistency, loyalty, honesty and all that jazz. Realpolitik though (which the US has never shied away from referring to), requires, nay, demands that you play your cards smartly, instead of splashing 'em all on the table at one go for everybody to see. Something we, as tiny as we might be, have not only failed to do, but have deliberately refused to try doing. Tells you a lot about a nation's mentality, eh?
So here's the deal:
The dotted red line is the now advancing Turkish pipeline which provides Central Asian energy to Europe. The orange one was supposed to be the Russian one providing Russian energy to Europe. Now the upper branch of that one will be scrapped at the expense of the lower one. The diversification of energy sources that we've all been blabbering about all the time, is what's actually happening in Turkey, while the rest of us have only remained with the blabbering itself. Once more congrats, Europe!
Of course the many Russophobes over here will keep insisting that this was a good outcome, and it's for the better. Never mind that we're losing profits worth billions of dollars that could've been immensely helpful in our delicate financial predicament; and even worse, losing the little geopolitical significance we had left. In our servile attempts to be patted on the head by the West, we've shut one of our last doors to the East. And, for someone sitting at such a geopolitical crossroads, failing to recognize the necessity to maneuver and balance between various competing sides, is equal to suicide.
There's a nice saying in our folklore: "When you don't want to kiss the priest's hand, you'll be kissing the imam's ass". Turns out the context of the Ottoman epoch when the proverb was invented, is still very much valid today.
In a nutshell:
(Caption in Russian: "Dreams come true. GazProm.")
In the meantime, interesting events are happening in Serbia, too...
In October, at the time when the heavy battles were raging all over East Ukraine, Putin visited Belgrade, an event that caused concern in the West. Just to remind you, two days earlier that infamous football match happened in Belgrade, where the Albanian flag was dropped from the sky, provoking unrest and violence both on the pitch and among the fans off-field. So the visit of Albanian PM Edi Rama in Belgrade that happened a month later, which was supposed to lay the ground for new normalized Serbo-Albanian relations, turned into a scandal after he made some comments in favor of full Kosovo independence. On top of that, the infamous Serbian nationalist Vojislav Seselj also didn't miss the opportunity to further inflame the situation. All in all, a string of unfortunate events.
The recap from the whole debacle is Albania 2, Serbia 0. Albania has won on both occasions: the Serbian side appeared to display too much oversensitivity, plus the usual ultranationalist overtones, which most of their neighbors and European partners didn't enjoy even one bit. Both scandals escalated into typical Balkan bickering, and the impression resurfaced that Serbia hasn't overcome its chauvinistic ambitions as it has been claiming lately.
Problem is, Serbia got a EU-candidate status very recently, so it's got to keep proving its willingness for integration at every corner. In reality, the statement of the Albanian PM was technically within the rules of proper diplomatic conduct, and he played that part rather smartly. But a nation like Serbia that's so passionate about its past just can't swallow such an insult and "move on" like there's no problem. Some additional fuel was added by Seselj's sudden release by the Hague tribunal for crimes against humanity, citing health reasons. Naturally, he was met like a national hero back home, and didn't miss to remind of his desire for revenge - something that Serbia's West Balkan neighbors didn't enjoy, either.
These recent Serbian events, especially the lack of adequate response from the current Serbian rulers (PM Vucic and prez Nikolic) are causing serious concern that the country might return on the path of hatred and confrontation, which led to the bloody collapse of Yugoslavia in Milosevic's time. Even if those concerns are somewhat exaggerated, the combination of all these unfortunate factors could push Serbia further away from possible EU membership and postpone it to the distant future - and this, in a period when the EU is too reluctant to expand any further. Such moods are very dangerous in a region that's still considered a major powder keg in Europe.
So who's winning from this situation? Well, the one guy who's definitely rubbing his hands with delight from all this shitstorm is none else but Russian president Putin. 2014 will probably remain in history as the year when he declared war on the entire post-Cold-War world order. After Ukraine and the other countries from the former Soviet bloc, Moscow is turning its attention to the Balkans more actively. That's a region where they've always had strategic interests. And though the situation here is more complex than ever, some of these countries already being EU members (or EU candidates) and also NATO members, Serbia remains Russia's most desired ally in the region.
Serbia, just like my country, has always been a crossroads between East and West. Its whole post-WW1 development is a fine proof of that. And today, more than ever, Russia has serious economic and political levers for influencing Serbian politics. Suffice to remind of GazProm's influence on Serbian industry (they own 50% of the Serbian national oil company NIS); the country was also an important link in the now defunct South Stream project that I mentioned above. Many of the large infrastructural projects in Serbia are with Russian participation. Moscow is Belgrade's largest trade partner, which was the reason Serbia refused to join the EU sanctions on Russia in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis.
We could add the fact that a large part of the Serbian society is very pro-Russian (both for historical, cultural, religious and linguistic reasons) - which, short of having a real Russian minority in that country, is the biggest possible lever for influence. Of course, Putin's visit in Serbia in October caused a swift reaction in Brussels, and EU commissioner of integration Johannes Hahn shortly followed suit and visited Belgrade. He tried to convince Serbia to join the sanctions, underlining Serbia's EU commitment. But his efforts were largely in vain.
Now, we have to understand the Serbian motivations, too. They're pressured between the hammer and anvil here. On the one side, when Vucic came to power he vowed to keep the European development route. He even promised to review the deal with GazProm which was going to hand the Serbian oil company over to the Russians. In the meantime, Serbia desperately needs the Russian investments and markets, especially right now when the Serbian economy is in ruins. In this complicated situation, there really aren't many options left. Even the EU bureaucrat acknowledged during his visit that "Serbia's choice is a very hard one". This gives reason to some observers to denounce EU's pressure on Serbia for joining the sanctions as "blackmail". At least that's how it's being perceived in Belgrade.
The picture gets complete with EU's insufficient activeness in the Western Balkans. Although Brussels is constantly declaring their commitment to developing that region, as of now that only remains in words, not actions. Of course there are some breakthroughs and warming up of the Serbia-Kosovo relations (a signed agreement in 2013, a meeting of the prime-ministers from South-East Europe which happened in August, etc). It was on that meeting that Serbian foreign minister Ivica Dacic made a surprising apology for the bombing of Dubrovnik during the 90s war.
What's needed is a more active EU position in this region, if Europe really wants its initiatives to have a more convincing result than the current Eastern Partnership project, which is too vague. The EU should be more engaged, more rational and less pushy on Serbia. Because any attempt to pressure Belgrade would only lead to more discontent and anti-European moods within that country. Unfortunately, new EC chairman JC Juncker made a wrong step right from the onset, stating outright that the EU wouldn't be expanding at least for the next 5 years. That was a wrong thing to do - not because anyone had any false hopes of the opposite (it's a fact that right now there isn't a country in the West Balkans that's prepared enough for EU membership), but because it's depriving many of the aspiring countries of motivation for reform.
This mistake has opened the field for various non-European factors to become more active in that part of Europe, which has led to a wave of Euro-skepticism among the locals. Still, we should probably note that Juncker's position was not caused by arrogance or selfishness, but realistically is a result of very objective factors in the real world. The EU is still haunted by the impression that it may've been too hasty in accepting many of its newest members, especially Bulgaria and Romania. Both countries at the two sides of the Danube are still under a special monitoring procedure, particularly in the sphere of internal order, corruption, etc. From the dysfunctional judicial system to the influence of organized crime in politics, all of these problems are dragging Serbia down, too. And of course, the EU has not yet recovered from the financial and economic crisis, so there's a lot of internal disagreement there, too.
In such a delicate situation, accepting new members would hardly bring any positive effects for anybody. But if even the faint light of hope at the end of the tunnel that's European integration gets extinguished, countries like Serbia would be sure to plunge back into darkness. A darkness with a distinctly Eurasian taste.
Putin's Surprise Call to Scrap South Stream Gas Pipeline Leaves Europe Reeling
Basically, Russia has scrapped its plans to build a gas pipeline across the Black Sea to Bulgaria, which was supposed to supply Central Europe with energy. Now they'll be opting for a cheaper route through Turkey, which already hosts one such pipeline. This came after a long period of pressure from the EU on countries like Bulgaria, citing things like "you're not building the pipeline according to our requirements". In essence, this has been a geopolitical game from the get-go. Now Putin is citing the crumbling ruble and the subsequent steep price of the project as his main reason for the decision, but he also mentioned Europe's behavior as one of the factors for this outcome.
As of now, our politicians are in disarray. My country has always been divided along Russophile/Russophobe lines (among many other divisions), but now things are gonna get a bit uglier than usual, I suspect. Meanwhile, some are bemoaning the fact that tiny countries like mine (and Serbia, and Hungary, and Austria) have become pawns in a bigger geopolitical struggle between East and West - yet again. Some are even going so far as to demand compensation from either Russia or Europe (depending on which side of the divide they're on). That's a fantasy, of course. No one cares about tiny countries like mine - we're just a pawn, have always been and will always be. And no one will compensate us for the missed benefits from building such a serious project with huge long-term geopolitical effects. Because we don't matter, beyond our role as a pawn, a launching-pad, or cannon-fodder. Not to mention that our new/old rulers have always been Brussels' and Washington's loyal puppy, the way the ones preceding them have always been Moscow's loyal puppies. We've lost geopolitical influence once again without putting up a fight, and there's almost none left at this point. And we're to blame for that, as much as Europe and Russia are - if not more.
Some more read on the matter:
Russia's South Stream Project Closure Result of Pressure: White House
"According to a US National Security Council spokesperson, Russia's decision to stop the South Stream project was reasoned by pressure on Russia from different factors, including sanctions."
Well, of course as always, the US is the one sitting back watching from a safe distance and rubbing their hands in delight from the whole situation. Because now Europe will have to look for other options to "diversify" its energy supply, and guess who? It's America who's offering a noble hand, proposing to help their minions partners from across the Big Water with - guess what? - shale gas indeed! How convenient.
Turkey also wins from this. They used to be a geopolitical rival of Russia, but now that they've decided to assert a new, unique role of their own as a bridge between East and West, and are finally not treating themselves as a mere appendix to the West, they're prepared to make their own decisions, and they've figured it'd be in their interests to play with both teams. Russia, in this case, is desperate to keep its channels of projecting geopolitical influence (like energy resources), and they've found a new ally in Turkey in this respect (beside China, but that's a whole other story). Turkey's interest is to emancipate itself from reluctant Europe, which has been flipping the bird into Ankara's face for, like, ever. Ultimately, Europe is the big loser here (and especially tiny insignificant countries like mine).
The most annoying part here is, unlike other tiny countries, we not only fail to protect our own national interests time and time again, but we deliberately keep shooting ourselves in the foot, and handing our ass on a silver plate to whoever is interested shagging us from behind. Want proof? Well, you asked:
Commissioner says EU stance on South Stream protected European consumers
And she's currently our most trusted and respected politician, mind you. Essentially, she's waving the white flag before the battle has even been officially declared over. What more can I say? If we can't respect ourselves enough to assert our own interests, how can we expect others to?
Meanwhile, Putin/Erdogan's meeting in Ankara has revealed their new joint plan of strategic cooperation. Here's what follows from there:
- Turkey becomes the second largest importer of Russian gas after Germany: 27 billion m3.
- Turkey is granted delicious preferential prices for that gas.
- RosAtom gets a status of special strategic investor in Turkey, which by the Turkish law automatically means a tax reduction from 20% down to 2%.
- Turkey builds a nuclear power station with 7 1000kWh Russian reactors - something we canceled too, again under pressure from the West.
- Putin commends Ankara for refusing to participate in the anti-Russian sanctions, and promises to import the Turkish agrarian surplus production on the Russian market, thus showing the middle finger to the EU and their attempts to starve Russia out.
- And of course, Russia builds yet another energy supply line across Turkey, instead of going through pesky Ukraine or unreliable Bulgaria. Congrats, Europe!
Just as an aside, to add some more flesh to the context: A couple days ago, Erdogan sharply scolded Obama for interfering in Turkish matters, saying he won't tolerate someone meddling into Turkey's affairs from 12,000 km away, and categorically refused to give Turkey's territory and air space to NATO for air strikes on ISIS. He's playing a double (or maybe even triple) game, even though Turkey is a NATO member. Why? Because he doesn't want to pick any one particular side and stick with it at the expense of its relations with all other sides. Why? Because Turkey is not in North America, it's right next door to Iraq and Russia, so he'll have to tread carefully there. It's easy to criticize and preach to Turkey about consistency, loyalty, honesty and all that jazz. Realpolitik though (which the US has never shied away from referring to), requires, nay, demands that you play your cards smartly, instead of splashing 'em all on the table at one go for everybody to see. Something we, as tiny as we might be, have not only failed to do, but have deliberately refused to try doing. Tells you a lot about a nation's mentality, eh?
So here's the deal:
The dotted red line is the now advancing Turkish pipeline which provides Central Asian energy to Europe. The orange one was supposed to be the Russian one providing Russian energy to Europe. Now the upper branch of that one will be scrapped at the expense of the lower one. The diversification of energy sources that we've all been blabbering about all the time, is what's actually happening in Turkey, while the rest of us have only remained with the blabbering itself. Once more congrats, Europe!
Of course the many Russophobes over here will keep insisting that this was a good outcome, and it's for the better. Never mind that we're losing profits worth billions of dollars that could've been immensely helpful in our delicate financial predicament; and even worse, losing the little geopolitical significance we had left. In our servile attempts to be patted on the head by the West, we've shut one of our last doors to the East. And, for someone sitting at such a geopolitical crossroads, failing to recognize the necessity to maneuver and balance between various competing sides, is equal to suicide.
There's a nice saying in our folklore: "When you don't want to kiss the priest's hand, you'll be kissing the imam's ass". Turns out the context of the Ottoman epoch when the proverb was invented, is still very much valid today.
In a nutshell:
(Caption in Russian: "Dreams come true. GazProm.")
In the meantime, interesting events are happening in Serbia, too...
In October, at the time when the heavy battles were raging all over East Ukraine, Putin visited Belgrade, an event that caused concern in the West. Just to remind you, two days earlier that infamous football match happened in Belgrade, where the Albanian flag was dropped from the sky, provoking unrest and violence both on the pitch and among the fans off-field. So the visit of Albanian PM Edi Rama in Belgrade that happened a month later, which was supposed to lay the ground for new normalized Serbo-Albanian relations, turned into a scandal after he made some comments in favor of full Kosovo independence. On top of that, the infamous Serbian nationalist Vojislav Seselj also didn't miss the opportunity to further inflame the situation. All in all, a string of unfortunate events.
The recap from the whole debacle is Albania 2, Serbia 0. Albania has won on both occasions: the Serbian side appeared to display too much oversensitivity, plus the usual ultranationalist overtones, which most of their neighbors and European partners didn't enjoy even one bit. Both scandals escalated into typical Balkan bickering, and the impression resurfaced that Serbia hasn't overcome its chauvinistic ambitions as it has been claiming lately.
Problem is, Serbia got a EU-candidate status very recently, so it's got to keep proving its willingness for integration at every corner. In reality, the statement of the Albanian PM was technically within the rules of proper diplomatic conduct, and he played that part rather smartly. But a nation like Serbia that's so passionate about its past just can't swallow such an insult and "move on" like there's no problem. Some additional fuel was added by Seselj's sudden release by the Hague tribunal for crimes against humanity, citing health reasons. Naturally, he was met like a national hero back home, and didn't miss to remind of his desire for revenge - something that Serbia's West Balkan neighbors didn't enjoy, either.
These recent Serbian events, especially the lack of adequate response from the current Serbian rulers (PM Vucic and prez Nikolic) are causing serious concern that the country might return on the path of hatred and confrontation, which led to the bloody collapse of Yugoslavia in Milosevic's time. Even if those concerns are somewhat exaggerated, the combination of all these unfortunate factors could push Serbia further away from possible EU membership and postpone it to the distant future - and this, in a period when the EU is too reluctant to expand any further. Such moods are very dangerous in a region that's still considered a major powder keg in Europe.
So who's winning from this situation? Well, the one guy who's definitely rubbing his hands with delight from all this shitstorm is none else but Russian president Putin. 2014 will probably remain in history as the year when he declared war on the entire post-Cold-War world order. After Ukraine and the other countries from the former Soviet bloc, Moscow is turning its attention to the Balkans more actively. That's a region where they've always had strategic interests. And though the situation here is more complex than ever, some of these countries already being EU members (or EU candidates) and also NATO members, Serbia remains Russia's most desired ally in the region.
Serbia, just like my country, has always been a crossroads between East and West. Its whole post-WW1 development is a fine proof of that. And today, more than ever, Russia has serious economic and political levers for influencing Serbian politics. Suffice to remind of GazProm's influence on Serbian industry (they own 50% of the Serbian national oil company NIS); the country was also an important link in the now defunct South Stream project that I mentioned above. Many of the large infrastructural projects in Serbia are with Russian participation. Moscow is Belgrade's largest trade partner, which was the reason Serbia refused to join the EU sanctions on Russia in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis.
We could add the fact that a large part of the Serbian society is very pro-Russian (both for historical, cultural, religious and linguistic reasons) - which, short of having a real Russian minority in that country, is the biggest possible lever for influence. Of course, Putin's visit in Serbia in October caused a swift reaction in Brussels, and EU commissioner of integration Johannes Hahn shortly followed suit and visited Belgrade. He tried to convince Serbia to join the sanctions, underlining Serbia's EU commitment. But his efforts were largely in vain.
Now, we have to understand the Serbian motivations, too. They're pressured between the hammer and anvil here. On the one side, when Vucic came to power he vowed to keep the European development route. He even promised to review the deal with GazProm which was going to hand the Serbian oil company over to the Russians. In the meantime, Serbia desperately needs the Russian investments and markets, especially right now when the Serbian economy is in ruins. In this complicated situation, there really aren't many options left. Even the EU bureaucrat acknowledged during his visit that "Serbia's choice is a very hard one". This gives reason to some observers to denounce EU's pressure on Serbia for joining the sanctions as "blackmail". At least that's how it's being perceived in Belgrade.
The picture gets complete with EU's insufficient activeness in the Western Balkans. Although Brussels is constantly declaring their commitment to developing that region, as of now that only remains in words, not actions. Of course there are some breakthroughs and warming up of the Serbia-Kosovo relations (a signed agreement in 2013, a meeting of the prime-ministers from South-East Europe which happened in August, etc). It was on that meeting that Serbian foreign minister Ivica Dacic made a surprising apology for the bombing of Dubrovnik during the 90s war.
What's needed is a more active EU position in this region, if Europe really wants its initiatives to have a more convincing result than the current Eastern Partnership project, which is too vague. The EU should be more engaged, more rational and less pushy on Serbia. Because any attempt to pressure Belgrade would only lead to more discontent and anti-European moods within that country. Unfortunately, new EC chairman JC Juncker made a wrong step right from the onset, stating outright that the EU wouldn't be expanding at least for the next 5 years. That was a wrong thing to do - not because anyone had any false hopes of the opposite (it's a fact that right now there isn't a country in the West Balkans that's prepared enough for EU membership), but because it's depriving many of the aspiring countries of motivation for reform.
This mistake has opened the field for various non-European factors to become more active in that part of Europe, which has led to a wave of Euro-skepticism among the locals. Still, we should probably note that Juncker's position was not caused by arrogance or selfishness, but realistically is a result of very objective factors in the real world. The EU is still haunted by the impression that it may've been too hasty in accepting many of its newest members, especially Bulgaria and Romania. Both countries at the two sides of the Danube are still under a special monitoring procedure, particularly in the sphere of internal order, corruption, etc. From the dysfunctional judicial system to the influence of organized crime in politics, all of these problems are dragging Serbia down, too. And of course, the EU has not yet recovered from the financial and economic crisis, so there's a lot of internal disagreement there, too.
In such a delicate situation, accepting new members would hardly bring any positive effects for anybody. But if even the faint light of hope at the end of the tunnel that's European integration gets extinguished, countries like Serbia would be sure to plunge back into darkness. A darkness with a distinctly Eurasian taste.