The message that such a policy conveys is that the so called EU “standards” can fall on the level of “radical or less radical”. Obviously, the whole political spectrum in Serbia has had a sharp shift towards radicalism in the last years with the so called radicals being in fact ultra-radicals and the so called pro-EU forces being radicals. The more radical Serbia gets, the more concessions and financial support it receives from the EU for turning less radical.

Serbia has failed to make progress in some crucial fields. Well, it still adamantly refuses to deliver it’s war criminals to international courts. More generally, Serbian society has failed to acknowledge it’s (large) responsibilities in all the wars of the 90-ies. The radicals are now the strongest single party in the country. The situation in Serbia is analogous to that of a hypothetical post-WW2 Germany where the Nazis would have still been strongest party and Germans would still feel as victims. The EU is basically financing Serbian radicalism with its cookies-per-election strategy.

Even the fall of Milosevic was not a result of a broad societal movement of analysis and self-reflection but a result of a free fall economy due to isolation and political pressure from abroad. Serbia should not be rewarded for it’s radicalism. The EU should face Serbian radicalism with the only path that has worked until now, namely isolation. Only this way radicals in Serbia can fall out of fashion.