President Trump’s pressure exposes the illusion of power surrounding Aleksandar Vučić

Trump’s intervention in Belgrade is shifting the balance of power in the Western Balkans

Sanctions imposed by the American president are forcing Gazprom to withdraw from Serbia. President Aleksandar Vučić’s grip on power is weakening, while Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, stands to benefit from the new energy order.

The erratic policy of the U.S. president, marked by ever-new threats that are later partly withdrawn, creates the impression that Donald Trump is engaging in little more than bluster. In political communication, the acronym “TACO” has caught on for his backing down: Trump Always Chickens Out. But like most sentences containing the word “always,” this one is wrong. Trump can be deadly serious. Weak adversaries, such as Venezuela’s abducted president, have learned this the hard way. Another case is Serbia, with its seemingly powerful president.

For a long time, it appeared that the Belgrade strongman might evade Washington DC’s demands. In the end, however, he had to back down, even without the Americans sending an armada into the Adriatic. It was enough that Washington did not once again suspend its sanctions against the country’s largest energy company NIS.

Faced with the prospect of an energy emergency and a threatened fuel supply for his already angry population, Vučić buckled under Trump’s suddenly very real threat. Russia’s majority stake in NIS had long been a thorn in the American president’s side, just as Trump has sought to curtail other Russian energy interests. These include restrictions on Russian oil exports to India, sanctions against Gazprom, and the forced sale of Lukoil assets to the U.S. investment firm Carlyle.

Trump’s intervention in Belgrade is shifting the balance of power in the Western Balkans. In 2008, Serbia sold a majority stake in NIS to Russia as part of a strategy of closer mutual ties with the culturally kindred gas and oil supplier from the East. Gazprom’s exit, which amounted more to an expulsion, now reduces Moscow’s influence in the European Union’s backyard. Strategists in the Kremlin will hardly welcome this, even if the sale price, at around one billion euros, is roughly two-and-a-half times the original purchase price.

The main beneficiary of the new energy order is one of Vučić’s neighbors: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The Budapest-based energy group MOL, under his influence, is set to become NIS’s new majority owner, provided the Americans approve, which currently seems likely. MOL continues to source gas and inexpensive oil from Russia. With NIS in its portfolio, Hungary would dominate the oil business in the Western Balkans. Investors are already pricing this in since the first takeover rumors emerged, MOL’s share price has risen by about one-third.

Orbán, often described as “illiberal,” also maintains good relations with both Trump and Vladimir Putin. Within the EU, he votes against any move to weaken Russia, which has been attacking Ukraine for the past four years. His closeness to Moscow irritates many in the EU. Spain and Romania have therefore barred Hungarian investors from participating in rail and energy companies. E.ON was forced to postpone the sale of a Romanian subsidiary.

With the NIS acquisition, however, Orbán has pulled off a coup. With his help, Russia remains in the game as an oil and gas supplier. Hungary also plans to challenge the EU’s intention to ban energy imports from Putin’s realm before the European Court of Justice. Before the court rules, Hungary will hold elections. It is quite possible that voters will show the long-serving leader the red card in April. The outcome will determine how long countries at the heart of Europe continue to fill Russia’s war chest by importing oil and gas.

Despite Orbán’s distance from the EU, it is an ironic twist that Vučić’s turn toward Orbán amounts to a move closer to the EU, whose rules also apply to MOL. A single stroke from Washington has brought the ruler in Belgrade, who fancied himself on equal footing with the presidents of Russia and China, back down to reality. Vučić governs a small country with slowing economic growth, a fragile legal system, and a population so strongly opposed to him that he has had to promise early elections.

Serbia has been a candidate for EU membership since 2012. As the largest country in the Western Balkans, it holds a key position. Brussels should keep the accession perspective alive but place its hopes in politicians who genuinely pursue that goal. With Vučić, who has dominated political life in Belgrade for years, that now seems hardly possible. He has long since exhausted his stock of trust not only among large parts of his own population but also any political capital or advance credit he once enjoyed from the EU. /Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/