The buildings made for unframed Yugoslavia stick to Serbia like clothes given to a child who hopes to grow up to fill them. Meanwhile, everything around Serbia has changed
By Veton SURROI
1. A veteran Western diplomat tells me how they were sitting in one of the rooms for a coffee break, how his colleague had grabbed the table to bring him closer to the ambassador’s chair, and how he had a wiretap in his hand, hidden in the end the table. This was almost fifty years ago and the surveillance apparatus was huge – the young diplomats successfully covered it up before the ambassador could investigate. Even so, he was tired of arguing day after day – he was part of the delegations of the free world that held talks with the Soviet Union and its satellites – and they did not want to burden him with espionage work.
The veteran diplomat was talking about a hall like this one where we meet, in the “Sava” center in Belgrade, which Marshal Tito ordered to be built in honor of the next Conference on Security Cooperation in Europe, after the Helsinki one. Tito wanted to repeat the “Finnish” position, of the state that could gather West and East in the capital and come out neutral. Even the eavesdroppers, deployed by the Yugoslav Secret Service, would have been ready to understand the secrets of the Western and Eastern states, without discrimination. In 1977 and 1978, who knows how many words were recorded in the archives of the Yugoslav Secret Service.
Almost half a century later, a non-governmental gathering titled “Belgrade Security Conference” is held in the “Sava” center. The veteran diplomat reminds me of the table scene as he pulls her towards our armchairs.
2. This is an interesting detail of holding a debate on European (and world) security at the “Sava” center. At least two mental prompts come to mind. One, more open, is that the meeting is being held at the center where the overcoming of the cold war was discussed at a time when the world may again enter a new cold war. The other, not so open, that Serbia would probably like to repeat the situation when Belgrade would be a European capital that would be neutral, with the capacity to make West and East together.
Buildings, however, do not create geopolitical realities. The “Sava” center was built for Tito’s unbroken Yugoslavia. The building of the Assembly where the deputies of the Republic of Serbia meet was built for Yugoslavia, which once became 20-million, which stretched from Slovenia to Macedonia – seven independent states today. The building where the Government of Serbia meets was built for the Federal Executive Council, the government of one of the countries with which more than one hundred and fifty countries of the world consulted on a daily basis. That all these buildings are like adult clothes that are bequeathed to a child who has obstacles in further physical development.
While the buildings are in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, the entire political geography around Serbia has changed. This capital, wherever it comes from, is surrounded by NATO countries.
But Serbia has not yet come to terms with its geography.
3. A few days later I am in Warsaw. A polished Polish diplomat, coincidentally, talks about reconciliation with geography.
Poland was first placed in a strategic embrace with Germany and consequently with the other states of the European Union. For 20 years of membership, the country’s gross national product has quadrupled. From the country, 8 billion euros go to the EU as bonds, and 24 billion euros return to Poland as means of solidary development. Since the country joined the EU, the average life expectancy of citizens has increased by three years.
And Poland, perhaps rarely in any other European country, has built into its DNA sensitivity to the geography to its east. Russia’s open war against Ukraine awakened the sense of the great weight that geography has for Poland.
“Cooperating with geography”, says the senior Polish diplomat, “this is something we have learned as a nation”.
The great challenge of this cooperation is the responsibility that Poland assumes during the EU presidency, which begins on January 1, 2025.
And in this strategic vision, for Poland, says the diplomat, “it is and should be clear who is with whom in the war that Russia is waging against Ukraine and all others. There is no gray area; that we all need to know where we are.”
4. A few days later, I hear the president of Serbia on the BBC’s “Hard Talk” how he answers the interviewer, who repeats to him that Serbia is sitting on some geopolitical chairs. “I am sitting on only one chair, the Serbian one,” says President Vučić.
This may be true. But everything around the Serbian chair has changed, especially the historical winds. In 2025, a ceasefire line could be established between Ukraine and Russia. The last time Russian soldiers did this on the European continent, a dividing line was drawn between East and West, including Central and Eastern European countries. This time, the only dividing line between East and West with theoretical possibilities is that between Serbia and its neighbors.
Next year, Serbia may wake up in a completely different geography. As the most current in this business could recommend, the Poles, geography is not worth confronting. Wisdom is how to learn to cooperate with it.
