'Not the time to sit on two chairs': Croatia urges Serbia to choose between Russia, EU

By Talha Ozturk

BELGRADE, Serbia (AA) – Serbia must choose a side between Russia and the European Union, the prime minister of neighboring Croatia said on Monday.

“If Serbia has the ambition to continue its journey to the EU, one has to know where it stands. Now is not the time to sit on two chairs,” Andrej Plenkovic said in comments on the controversy over Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s cancelled trip to Belgrade.

Lavrov was forced to call off the two-day visit, which was due to start on Monday and included talks with President Aleksandar Vucic, after Montenegro, North Macedonia and Bulgaria close their airspace to his plane.

“In the current circumstances, Serbia should be very careful about who it sides with,” Plenkovic said.

He, however, acknowledged that the visit had “nothing to do with Croatia” and was a bilateral matter between Moscow and Belgrade.

Lavrov’s Serbia visit would have been the first by a high-ranking Russian official since the start of the Ukraine war, and was planned in the backdrop of the EU’s ongoing efforts to punish Moscow with sanctions and other measures.

Serbia, which is almost entirely dependent on Russian gas and oil, has faced growing pressure for its neutrality and reluctance to sanction Moscow.

Vucic has been walking a tightrope in recent months, on the one side expressing that sanctioning Russia would cost Belgrade dearly, while also trying to assure the EU that “Serbia is on the European path” and this was the country’s “only policy.”

As Serbia’s 10-year gas supply contract with Russian giant Gazprom expired at the end of May, Vucic held a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 29, announcing afterward that the two sides agreed on a new three-year deal.

The agreement was expected to be formally signed during Lavrov’s trip to Belgrade.