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NATO has been reiterating its openess towards membership of Serbia for years now. Serbia entered a cooperation programme with the NATO Partnership for Peace in 2006, but also adopted a Declaration on military neutrality in 2007. The Serbian political scene is clearly divided, the ruling parties as well, while the citizens of Serbia are to a great extent against membership: only up to a quarter of the population supports entry into NATO. It is thus important to distinguish between “cooperation” with NATO (which alrealy exists within the Partnership for Peace and which no one brings to doubt) and “membership” into NATO. It is also key to distinguish between “European” integrations (the road towards EU membership) and “Euro-Atlantic integration” (the road towards membership into NATO).

Key events for the relationship between Serbia and NATO in the last decade:

1999. – After 78 days of bombing of Serbia, NATO troops (Kfor) enter Kosovo. They fail to prevent the ethnic cleansing of over 200,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians.

2003. – Belgrade applies for membership into the Partnership for Peace programme

2004. – New pogrom of Serbs in Kosovo in front of the eyes of Kfor – relations between Serbia and NATO worsened

2005. – Agreement on the transit of NATO troops through Serbia

2006. – Serbia joins the Partnership for Peace programme

2007. – The Serbian parliament adopts the Declaration on military neutrality

2007. – NATO supports the Ahtisaari plan

2008. – NATO begins the training of the “Kosovo Security Forces”, which aim is in to transform into a future “Kosovo army”

2008. – Signing of an Agreement on the protection of sensitive information between Serbia and NATO

2009. – At the summit in Strasbourg, NATO leaders welcome the “stated will” of the new authorities in Belgrade to go towards NATO membership.

2010. – 200 public figures in Serbia send an appeal to the public calling for a referendum on NATO and warning that the government is trying to bring the country into NATO with a “step-by-step” strategy. The government denies, but in May the NATO Secretary-General Andres Fog Rasmussen says he will “give his maximum” to bring Serbia into NATO, exactly by a “step-by-step strategy asked for by the Serbian side”.

The North-Atlantic alliance has on many occasions in the last several years underlined its openess to Serbia’s membership. In Brussels, Serbia’s membership is seen as key for finishing the process of NATO enlargement in the Balkans. The indirect confirmation that the current government in Serbia is geared towards membership can be found in the conclusions of the NATO summit from April 2009, in which NATO leaders have welcomed the intention of the Serbian authorities to join the Alliance. A year later, the NATO Secretary-General Andres Fog Rasmussen has called “not only the Serbian political leaders, but also the Serbian people to look into the future, carefully evaluate the situation in order to arrive at the conclusion that the future of Serbia lies in the integration into the Euro-Atlantic community – NATO and the EU”. The Secretary-General has said he would “give his maximum” to bring Serbia into NATO, by the exact “step-by-step strategy asked for by the Serbian side”. He added that he hoped that all Balkan countries would join NATO before the end of his mandate as Secretary-General in 2013.

On the other side, the Serbian parliament had adopted the Declaration on military neutrality in December 2007. Officially, the government of Serbia is respecting this declaration, as well as the cooperation programme Partnership for Peace, which it joined in December 2006. However, it is clear that a “crawling process” of bringing Serbia to the Alliance through the backdoor and far away from public eyes.

The Declaration on military neutrality is seen as the will of only one political party, and not of the majority of political parties. A part of the ruling coalition is even asking for its abolishment. The government does not have the courage in front of the popular opinion to abolish military neutrality, while it does even mention this security commitment during its dialogue with Western partners.

The lobbyists for membership into NATO are creating further confusion by pushing the concept of “Euro-Atlantic integration” – membership into EU and NATO – while the Serbian public is interested only in “European integrations”, membership into the EU.

Finally,  the specificity of Serbia compared to the countries which recently joined  lies in the fact that it is the only country which was bombed by NATO,  and that the Alliance has been forming security structures of a secessionist movement on its territory.

The actors participating in the relations between Serbia and NATO can be divided into:

1) NATO and its members: The NATO Secretariat and some of its members have been regularly calling on Belgrade to join NATO and are repeatedly calling on Belgrade to improve relations with NATO. “Soft diplomacy” and an “open-door” policy are in place, with no direct pressure.

2) Russia: Moscow is openly against Serbia’s membership into NATO, the same way it is against any NATO enlargement. Although Moscow is restraining from sending a clearer public statement, it is clear that it sees NATO membership as a threat for is own security and strategic interests. On the other side, Russia has offered a dialogue on the new European security structure,  which would diminish the importance of NATO.

3) The government of Serbia: Given its heterogenous composition, the ruling coalition in Serbia does not have a unique stand on further steps into NATO membership. It is clear that G17, the Serbian Renewall Movement, the Party of Vojvodina Hungarians and the League of Vojvodina Social-Democrats and the Social-Democratic Party are in favor of NATO membership. The coalition around the Socialist Party of Serbia has reservations towards integrations, but in the interest of its coalition partnership with the Democratic Party, it is not underlying this problem openly. The Democratic Party itself has in its ranks some of the leading lobbyists for further integration into NATO, but the official policy of the party is the support to the stand of “military neutrality-for now”. It is clear that in a different coalition environment, with the Liberal-Democratic Party for example, the Democratic Party would have much strong sympathies towards further steps aimed at

4) The opposition in Serbia: The Democratic Party of Serbia is the most open and most active opponent of the Serbia’s membership into NATO. The Serbian Radical Party and the Serbian Progressive Party are also against, but they are much less actively opposing. The Liberal-Democratic Party is the most vocal supporter of an urgent entry into NATO.

5) The NGO sector: The pro-NATO lobby in Serbia is composed of a number of non-governmental organizations which, after a more defensive period following the unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s secession, are now more active. They are being logistically and financially supported by the NATO Public Diplomacy department as well as by the US embassy and the Czech embassy as the Alliance’s contact embassy in Serbia. Some of the most active organizations included the Atlantic Council, the ISAC Fund, the Euro-Atlantic initiatives, the Balkan Fund for Democracy,the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, the Forum for International Relations, the European Movement and TransConflict. The leading analyts are Ivan Vejvoda, Danijel Šunter, Vladan Živulović, Milan Simurdić, Aleksandar Radić, Zoran Dragišić, Jovan Teokarević, Jelena Milić and Sonja Biserko. The opponents to NATO membership have some access to the largest media, but the clearest criticism can be heard in alternative media (Fond Slobodan Jovanović, Pečat, Standard, Nova srpska politička misao).

6) Citizens: According to the CESID polls, some 22 percent of Serbia’s citizens trust NATO. According to a Politikum poll, 15 percent of the population wants NATO membership (April 2010). Membership into NATO has been supported by between 19 and 30 percent of the population.