Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has been reading German history lately — and appears to have drawn some lessons.

During a recent interview with POLITICO in Brussels, Vučić discussed how modern Germany has come to terms with the loss of territory it used to consider its own, and instead focused on its economic rise and promoting its culture and values.

Is that a template for Serbia, which played a central role in the Balkan wars of the 1990s and faces the prospect of having to recognize that Kosovo is no longer its province as a price of EU membership?

Vučić wouldn’t quite go that far. But, he said, “I would like us to be smart enough and to know that it’s not always the territorial issue that’s the most important. It’s important, no doubt. But it cannot be more important … than the values, than the virtue, than the language and the culture.”

Vučić twice referred to himself as a “small guy from the Balkans” — a jarring description not just because he stands some two meters tall. For the past decade, he has been the dominant political figure in Serbia, the biggest and most populous of the six Western Balkan states seeking EU membership. His party claimed 60 percent of the vote in last month’s Serbian parliamentary election.

He said his success was down to sound management of the economy, big infrastructure projects and the weakness of opposition politicians.

For critics inside and outside Serbia, Vučić is far too dominant. Academics, rights activists, Western diplomats and opposition politicians say he has presided over serious backsliding on democracy, freedom and the rule of law.

Freedom House, the U.S. government-funded NGO, rates Serbia as only “partly free.” The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe declared that while candidates in last month’s election were able to campaign “and fundamental freedoms were respected, voter choice was limited by the governing party’s overwhelming advantage and the promotion of government policies by most major media outlets.”

Vučić dismissed such assessments as “bureaucratic reports.” He described the vote as “the most fair elections we have ever had.”

“I don’t say that it’s an ideal situation,” he said of the election result. But he said his success was down to sound management of the economy, big infrastructure projects and the weakness of his political opponents.

Vučić talked in glowing terms about the new Belgrade Waterfront (a controversial real estate development), new highways and the country’s robust economic growth. According to the national statistics office, the Serbian economy grew in the first quarter by 5 percent — “by far the best in Europe,” Vučić said, adding the country hopes to avoid recession this year despite the coronavirus crisis.

White House talks

Vučić was in Brussels to meet top EU officials on Friday of last week, a day before he had been due to hold talks at the White House with leaders from Kosovo — until news of a war crimes indictment against Kosovan President Hashim Thaçi scuppered that plan.

Kosovo, a predominantly ethnic Albanian territory, declared independence from Serbia in 2008, almost a decade after a war that ended with a NATO bombing campaign. But Serbia continues to regard Kosovo as a rebel province. With the support of its ally Russia, Serbia has prevented Kosovo from joining the United Nations and other international organizations.

In Brussels, the White House talks had not been viewed with great enthusiasm. EU diplomats complained that U.S. special envoy Richard Grenell had cut them out of the process. Grenell has insisted he informed senior French and German officials of his initiative, which he said focuses on economic cooperation. But there has been little sign of coordination with his EU counterpart, Miroslav Lajčak.

Some EU officials were also afraid the U.S. administration could preside over a deal changing the borders of Kosovo and Serbia — although Grenell said he does not favor such a land swap and the EU does not have a common position on the idea.

Vučić didn’t close to the door to future meetings in Washington: “Whenever they invite me, how can one small guy from the Balkans refuse to speak to someone from the White House?” But he also said EU-sponsored talks should resume despite the charges filed against Thaçi and expected them to take place in Brussels in the coming weeks.

On borders, Vučić said, “I’m ready to discuss every single issue, ready to discuss all the proposals that might come from anyone.” But he also stressed that “it cannot be the case that we lose everything and they gain everything.”

For Serbia, the Kosovo issue is inextricably linked to its bid for EU membership. The bloc has made clear neither Serbia nor Kosovo can join until they have reached a permanent peace settlement.

But Vučic said the EU would have to offer a guarantee of membership before Serbia signs off on a peace deal: “If you think that Serbs will accept to recognize Kosovo independence to get maybe your membership in the future — hey!”

Serbia has been in EU membership talks since 2014, and Vučic said his aim was to wrap up negotiations in 2024 and become a member in 2026. “We have to accelerate our EU process,” he said.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić at a meeting with European Council President Charles Michel in Brussels in June | Pool photo by Olivier Matthys/AFP via Getty Images

That timeline strikes some EU officials as highly ambitious. It would certainly need Serbia to get more serious on rule of law and other issues, they say.

Points of friction

As he sat down for the interview at Serbia’s diplomatic base in Brussels, Vučić spotted a map on the wall — with Serbia and other Western Balkan countries in gray, surrounded by EU members in yellow. The map, Vučić said, showed not just that Serbia needs the EU but also that the EU needs Serbia.

But the EU still needs some convincing. Last week, six EU members blocked the opening of a new chapter in Serbia’s membership talks, mainly because they were disappointed with the state of reforms, according to diplomats.

Another point of friction with the EU is foreign policy. Not only because of Serbia’s ties to Russia but also due to Vučić’s close cooperation with China.

During the coronavirus crisis in March, Vučić expressed his gratitude for Chinese shipments of medical supplies, writing a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping and declaring that “the only country that can help us is China.” He even kissed a Chinese flag when welcoming the arrival of Chinese doctors. By contrast, he dismissed EU solidarity as a “fairy tale.”

That did not go down well with EU members. A statement issued as part of a virtual EU summit with Balkan leaders in May declared that “the fact that this [EU] support and cooperation [on coronavirus] goes far beyond what any other partner has provided to the region deserves public acknowledgment.”

Yet Vučic stood by his comments: “Did I lie? Did I say something that you didn’t hear even from in a different way, from Ursula [von der Leyen, the European Commission president], from Italians, from France, from Spanish? But it was easy to find a scapegoat.”

However, he said he also acknowledged “the biggest humanitarian aid we got is from the European Union, the biggest trade turnover we have [is] with the European Union, there are no doubts about it.”

He said alignment with EU foreign policy would come — but not now. “We will do it but that chapter has not been opened yet,” Vučic said.

Vučić, 50, started his political career in Serbia as an ultranationalist. He worked as minister of information under Slobodan Milošević, the former Serbian and Yugoslav president who died in 2006 while on trial before the U.N war crimes tribunal, facing grave charges over the wars of the 1990s in which more than 100,000 people were killed.

These days, Vučić is sometimes compared to Josip Broz Tito, the leader of communist Yugoslavia famous for playing major powers off each other, rather than Milošević.

But he declined to say whether he had a political role model. “I cannot compare different times,” he said, adding it was easy today to criticize Tito, MiloÅ¡ević and others. “Tomorrow, it will be easy criticizing me,” Vučić said.