Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic Is a Threat to Europe 05.01.

22, 23:10

ARGUMENT
An expert's point of view on a current event.

Why Serbia’s President Is a Threat to Europe

Aleksandar Vucic’s authoritarian government is aiding Russian and Chinese propaganda and allowing genocide denialists to
celebrate war criminals.

By Florian Bieber, the coordinator of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group and holds the Jean Monnet chair in the Europeanization of Southeastern Europe at the University of Graz, Austria.

JANUARY 5, 2022, 11:41 AM

In November and December 2021, thousands of Serbian citizens took to the streets, blocking key roads for three weekends to protest a proposed
law facilitating expropriation seen as favoring a large-scale lithium mine planned in Western Serbia by the multinational company Rio Tinto.

The protesters are primarily concerned about the lack of transparency around the mine project; they also fear serious environmental damage
and large-scale corruption. During the first protests, thugs with sticks beat protesters and tried to drive through the protests in a bulldozer in
Sabac, the closest city to the planned mine. They were driven to the location in government cars, and there was little doubt that they were
threatening demonstrators on behalf of the regime.

Today, no decision can be taken without Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who features on talk shows for hours on a weekly basis on all main
TV channels. He heralded the deal as a major investment and offered it direct political support. Nevertheless, the demonstrations highlight that
while Vucic might have absolute command of the country—188 of the 250 members of parliament were elected on his party list and his party
controls nearly every municipality in the country—his rule is not uncontested.

After the protests gained momentum, Vucic at first appeared to concede and withdraw support for the project, but soon afterward, on Dec. 27,
2021, he reiterated his support and insisted it would go ahead after all.

Another spectacle in recent weeks underlined the menacing side of Vucic’s regime. In downtown
Belgrade, there is a stain on a wall that does not seem to come off. It is a mural of Ratko Mladic,
the war criminal responsible for genocide in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995. When Serbs look to Europe they
look to Budapest, not Berlin.
In July, the portrait of Mladic—who is serving his life sentence after being sentenced by the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia—appeared in Belgrade, as such portraits did in many other towns in Serbia and the
Republika Srpska, the entity of Bosnia he helped to create through war crimes. These were not the first portraits of Mladic to pop up, but they are
appearing with increasing frequency, and earlier cases enjoyed less official protection.

Citizens keep trying to paint over the portraits, but diligent thugs keep restoring the most prominent portrait in a central Belgrade
neighborhood. When two activists threw eggs at the portrait, they were arrested by plainclothes police. While nationalist tabloids close to the
regime openly claim Mladic was a hero, the Serbian government has been protecting the mural without openly endorsing its motive.

By allowing the murals to be protected by unidentified thugs, the government is pandering to the nationalist electorate, while denying any
responsibility for them and thus protecting its pro-European credentials. The closest it came to publicly supporting Mladic was when Minister of
the Interior Aleksandar Vulin paid a visit to the mural after the arrests on Nov. 9, 2021.

The nationalist and authoritarian character of the Serbian government poses a threat for Serbia and the region.
Vucic’s claim to be a pragmatic, mainstream European conservative might have seemed convincing in his first years in power, but it increasingly
sounds hollow.

Vucic’s authoritarian course has increasingly distanced Serbia from the West and the European Union. While his party was supported by
Western embassies in its first years, in hopes of promoting a pragmatic politician with whom one can do business, Vucic and the media his
government controls have been promoting an anti-Western line.

By now, Serbia is an outlier in the Western Balkans. A regional poll commissioned by the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group shows that
80.4 percent of the region’s citizens want their country to join the EU; in Serbia, that number is just 53.2 percent.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/05/serbia-vucic-mladic-mural-lithium-china-russia-threat-europe/# Page 1 of 7
Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic Is a Threat to Europe 05.01.22, 23:10

China and Russia are viewed as bigger supporters and more widely trusted, whether it’s due to the COVID-19 vaccines they donated or their
leaders. This view has been compounded with the pandemic, with China being seen as the main provider of assistance—even though Belgrade
bought the vaccines from Beijing, and there is no public information on the price paid—and the United States and the EU viewed as spreaders of
fake news.

This is a result of an intense anti-Western campaign from pro-government media, which continuously accuse Western governments, as well as
independent media, including the CNN affiliate N1, of being anti-Serbian propaganda outlets.

Even when it comes to Serbs’ support for the EU, there is a clear authoritarian slant. Surveys show the most popular world leader, after Russian
President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, is Hungary’s autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orban; in other words, when
Serbs look to Europe they look to Budapest, not Berlin.

While in 2015 Vucic dismissed Orban for his hostility to migration and described Serbia a more European country than some EU members—a
clear dig at Hungary—he has since replaced his cozy relationship with then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel with a friendship with Orban.

While Germany remains an important ally in terms of economic investments and due to its weight in the EU, Vucic gets along better with a
fellow autocrat. Orban promises a closer relationship with the EU for what Serbia under Vucic is—a nationalist and authoritarian regime—while
Germany only offers this for what Serbia under Vucic pretends to be: a pro-European factor of stability. The new German government, with
Annalena Baerbock as a Green foreign minister, is likely to push harder on issues of rule of law and democracy in Serbia.

The turn against the West, combined with Vucic’s authoritarian control, matters beyond Serbia. While attitudes
elsewhere in the region are still very different, there is a real threat of contagion. Besides being at least twice as large as any other country in the
Western Balkans, Serbia borders all others (except Albania) and seeks to shape the region in two ways.

First, it presents itself as a regional leader through the “Open Balkan” initiative of regional integration, the idea of an integrated region based on
open borders known also as “Mini-Schengen” that would give Serbia the largest economic benefits and also tie the rest of the region more closely
to it. Vucic’s international and regional policy is still based on the faint echo of socialist Yugoslavia, which as a country did manage to punch
above its weight.

The other and somewhat conflicting approach is the so-called Serbian world—a term borrowed from Russia and basically describing a Serbian
sphere of influence based on ethnicity. Serbia is influential through Serb parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Kosovo. Even if it
does not control all of them completely, this allows Serbia to shape the domestic politics of its neighbors and block key decisions.

By building a sphere of influence, Serbia can spread its authoritarian anti-Western policies
throughout the region. In Kosovo’s recent regional elections, the outcome was far from clear in
majority-Albanian municipalities, with the ruling Vetevendosje party of Prime Minister Albin Making vaccinations available
across the region gained Serbia
Kurti taking a beating. This showed vibrant political contestation in the Albanian-majority
considerable sympathies in
regions of Kosovo, unlike in the Serb-majority areas. In the 10 majority-Serb municipalities, the neighboring countries.
Serb List, controlled by Belgrade, won across the board through a combination of intimidation
and corruption. In many places the party was not challenged and won up to 100 percent of the
vote.

Serbia also gained influence across the region in 2021 by providing vaccines and allowing citizens of other countries to get vaccinated in Serbia.
This was especially important for citizens from neighboring Bosnia, North Macedonia, and Montenegro, who lacked initial access to vaccines
due to the slow rollout of COVAX, the EU-supported global vaccination program. This was a pragmatic decision—Serbia secured vaccines from
China, Russia, and the West, but many citizens refused to get vaccinated due to strong anti-vaccine sentiment and low trust in the government.
Making vaccinations available across the region gained it considerable sympathies in neighboring countries.

While the EU helped to secure the bulk of vaccines in the region, it was late and failed to highlight and communicate its assistance when it
arrived. As a result, Serbia played the regional role in vaccine diplomacy that Russia and China did elsewhere, with a similar impact.

According to soon-to-be-published survey results from the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group, Serbia is rated as the greatest help during
the pandemic by citizens in Bosnia, mostly in the Republika Srpska, but also in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where relatively few

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/05/serbia-vucic-mladic-mural-lithium-china-russia-threat-europe/# Page 2 of 7
Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic Is a Threat to Europe 05.01.22, 23:10

Serbs live, Serbia is second only to the EU, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. In North Macedonia, where ethnic ties do not matter, more
citizens expect help in the battle against COVID-19 to come from Serbia than the EU.

While there is nothing wrong with regional solidarity, when it is promoted by an autocrat who has been working closely both with external
actors to maximize his support and with authoritarian leaders in the EU, this increased influence does not bode well. Just as Orban has been
helping to promote like-minded leaders in the EU through financial assistance, diplomatic backing, and supporting friendly media, Vucic is
seeking to extend his influence across the Western Balkans in similar ways.

This move makes him indispensable for Western interlocutors and helps him stay in power. In the process, it normalizes the authoritarian, anti-
Western, and nationalist worldview that permeates the party and media he controls. This risks undermining democratic and liberal
governments across the region and weakening the influence of the EU there, while encouraging a government that has been stoking nationalist
tensions.

Florian Bieber is the coordinator of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group and holds the Jean Monnet chair in the Europeanization of Southeastern Europe at the
University of Graz, Austria. He is the author of Debating Nationalism: The Global Spread of Nations. Twitter: @#ieber

TAGS: AUTHORITARIANISM, ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, GENOCIDE & CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, SERBIA

!function(e,t,n,s,u,a){e.twq||(s=e.twq=function(){s.exe?s.exe.apply(s,arguments):s.queue.push(arguments); },s.version='1.1',s.queue=
[],u=t.createElement(n),u.async=!0,u.src='//static.ads-twitter.com/uwt.js', a=t.getElementsByTagName(n)
[0],a.parentNode.insertBefore(u,a))}(window,document,'script'); // Insert Twitter Pixel ID and Standard Event data below
twq('init','nzlz2'); twq('track','PageView');
{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Foreign
Policy","url":"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","height":60,"url":"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/wp-
content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/logo.png","width":74}},"@type":"NewsArticle","mainEntityOfPage":
{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2022\/01\/05\/serbia-vucic-mladic-mural-lithium-china-russia-threat-
europe\/"},"headline":"Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic Is a Threat to Europe","description":"Aleksandar Vucic\u2019s
authoritarian government is aiding Russian and Chinese propaganda and allowing genocide denialists to celebrate war
criminals.","Articlebody":"In November and December 2021, thousands of Serbian citizens took to the streets, blocking key roads for
three weekends to protest a proposed law facilitating expropriation seen as favoring a large-scale lithium mine planned in Western
Serbia by the multinational company Rio Tinto.\r\n\r\nThe protesters are primarily concerned about the lack of transparency
around the mine project; they also fear serious environmental damage and large-scale corruption. During the first protests, thugs
with sticks beat protesters and tried to drive through the protests in a bulldozer in Sabac, the closest city to the planned mine. They
were <a href=\"https:\/\/impakter.com\/protests-in-serbia-against-destructive-mining-plans-face-government-
violence\/%5d\">driven<\/a> to the location in government cars, and there was little doubt that they were threatening demonstrators
on behalf of the regime.\r\n\r\nToday, no decision can be taken without Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who features on talk
shows for hours on a weekly basis on all main TV channels. He heralded the deal as a major investment and offered it direct political
support. Nevertheless, the demonstrations highlight that while Vucic might have absolute command of the country\u2014188 of the
250 members of parliament were elected on his party list and his party controls nearly every municipality in the country\u2014his
rule is not uncontested.\r\n\r\nAfter the protests gained momentum, Vucic at first appeared to concede and withdraw support for
the project, but soon afterward, on Dec. 27, 2021, he <a href=\"https:\/\/rs.n1info.com\/english\/news\/vucic-rio-tinto-jadar-project-
wont-be-withdrawn-activists-protests-go-on\/\">reiterated<\/a> his support and insisted it would go ahead after all.\r\n\r\n<span
class=\"pull-quote-sidebar\">When Serbs look to Europe they look to Budapest, not Berlin.<\/span>\r\n\r\nAnother spectacle in
recent weeks underlined the menacing side of Vucic\u2019s regime. In downtown Belgrade, there is a stain on a wall that does not
seem to come off. It is a mural of Ratko Mladic, the war criminal responsible for genocide in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica
in 1995.\r\n\r\nIn July, the portrait of Mladic\u2014who is serving his life sentence after being sentenced by the International
Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia\u2014appeared in Belgrade, as such portraits did in many other towns in Serbia and the
Republika Srpska, the entity of Bosnia he helped to create through war crimes. These were not the first portraits of Mladic to pop up,
but they are appearing with increasing frequency, and earlier cases enjoyed less official protection.\r\n\r\nCitizens keep trying to

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/05/serbia-vucic-mladic-mural-lithium-china-russia-threat-europe/# Page 3 of 7
Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic Is a Threat to Europe 05.01.22, 23:10

paint over the portraits, but diligent thugs keep restoring the most prominent portrait in a central Belgrade neighborhood. When two
activists threw eggs at the portrait, they were arrested by plainclothes police. While nationalist tabloids close to the regime openly
claim Mladic was a hero, the Serbian government has been protecting the mural without openly endorsing its motive.\r\n\r\nBy
allowing the murals to be protected by unidentified thugs, the government is pandering to the nationalist electorate, while denying
any responsibility for them and thus protecting its pro-European credentials. The closest it came to publicly supporting Mladic was
when Minister of the Interior Aleksandar Vulin paid a visit to the mural after the arrests on Nov. 9, 2021.\r\n\r\n[hrthick]\r\n<div
class=\"bolded-first-line\">\r\n\r\nThe nationalist and authoritarian character of the Serbian government poses a threat for Serbia
and the region. Vucic\u2019s claim to be a pragmatic, mainstream European conservative might have seemed convincing in his first
years in power, but it increasingly sounds hollow.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nVucic\u2019s authoritarian course has increasingly distanced
Serbia from the West and the European Union. While his party was supported by Western embassies in its first years, in hopes of
promoting a pragmatic politician with whom one can do business, Vucic and the media his government controls have been
promoting an anti-Western line.\r\n\r\nBy now, Serbia is an outlier in the Western Balkans. A regional poll commissioned by the
Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group shows that 80.4 percent of the region\u2019s citizens want their country to join the EU; in
Serbia, <a href=\"https:\/\/biepag.eu\/publication\/escaping-the-transactional-trap-the-way-forward-for-eu-enlargement\/\">that
number<\/a> is just 53.2 percent.\r\n\r\nChina and Russia are viewed as bigger supporters and more widely trusted, whether
it\u2019s due to the COVID-19 vaccines they donated or their leaders. This view has been compounded with the pandemic, with
China being seen as the main provider of assistance\u2014even though Belgrade bought the vaccines from Beijing, and there is no
public information on the price paid\u2014and the United States and the EU viewed as spreaders of fake
news.\r\n\r\n[fp_related]\r\n\r\nThis is a result of an intense anti-Western campaign from pro-government media, which
continuously accuse Western governments, as well as independent media, including the CNN affiliate N1, of being anti-Serbian
propaganda outlets.\r\n\r\nEven when it comes to Serbs\u2019 support for the EU, there is a clear authoritarian slant. Surveys show
the <a href=\"https:\/\/biepag.eu\/publication\/geopolitically-irrelevant-in-its-inner-courtyard\/\">most popular<\/a> world leader,
after Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, is Hungary\u2019s autocratic Prime Minister Viktor
Orban; in other words, when Serbs look to Europe they look to Budapest, not Berlin.\r\n\r\nWhile in 2015 Vucic dismissed Orban for
his hostility to migration and described Serbia a more European country than some EU members\u2014a clear dig at
Hungary\u2014he has since replaced his cozy relationship with then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel with a friendship with
Orban.\r\n\r\nWhile Germany remains an important ally in terms of economic investments and due to its weight in the EU, Vucic
gets along better with a fellow autocrat. Orban promises a closer relationship with the EU for what Serbia under Vucic is\u2014a
nationalist and authoritarian regime\u2014while Germany only offers this for what Serbia under Vucic pretends to be: a pro-
European factor of stability. The new German government, with Annalena Baerbock as a Green foreign minister, is likely to push
harder on issues of rule of law and democracy in Serbia.\r\n\r\n[hrthick]\r\n<div class=\"bolded-first-line\">\r\n\r\nThe turn against
the West, combined with Vucic\u2019s authoritarian control, matters beyond Serbia. While attitudes elsewhere in the region are still
very different, there is a real threat of contagion. Besides being at least twice as large as any other country in the Western Balkans,
Serbia borders all others (except Albania) and seeks to shape the region in two ways.\r\n\r\nFirst, it presents itself as a regional
leader through the \u201cOpen Balkan\u201d initiative of regional integration, the idea of an integrated region based on open
borders known also as \u201cMini-Schengen\u201d that would give Serbia the largest economic benefits and also tie the rest of the
region more closely to it. Vucic\u2019s international and regional policy is still based on the faint echo of socialist Yugoslavia, which
as a country did manage to punch above its weight.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nThe other and somewhat conflicting approach is the so-called
Serbian world\u2014a term borrowed from Russia and basically describing a Serbian sphere of influence based on ethnicity. Serbia is
influential through Serb parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Kosovo. Even if it does not control all of them
completely, this allows Serbia to shape the domestic politics of its neighbors and block key decisions.\r\n\r\n<span class=\"pull-
quote-sidebar\">Making vaccinations available across the region gained Serbia considerable sympathies in neighboring countries.
<\/span>\r\n\r\nBy building a sphere of influence, Serbia can spread its authoritarian anti-Western policies throughout the region. In
Kosovo\u2019s recent regional elections, the outcome was far from clear in majority-Albanian municipalities, with the ruling
Vetevendosje party of Prime Minister Albin Kurti taking a beating. This showed vibrant political contestation in the Albanian-
majority regions of Kosovo, unlike in the Serb-majority areas. In the 10 majority-Serb municipalities, the Serb List, controlled by
Belgrade, won across the board through a combination of intimidation and corruption. In many places the party was not challenged
and won up to 100 percent of the vote.\r\n\r\nSerbia also gained influence across the region in 2021 by providing vaccines and

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/05/serbia-vucic-mladic-mural-lithium-china-russia-threat-europe/# Page 4 of 7
Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic Is a Threat to Europe 05.01.22, 23:10

allowing citizens of other countries to get vaccinated in Serbia. This was especially important for citizens from neighboring Bosnia,
North Macedonia, and Montenegro, who lacked initial access to vaccines due to the slow rollout of COVAX, the EU-supported global
vaccination program. This was a pragmatic decision\u2014Serbia secured vaccines from China, Russia, and the West, but many
citizens <a href=\"https:\/\/biepag.eu\/publication\/outta-trust-post-pandemic-trust-and-democratic-resilience-in-the-western-
balkans\/\">refused<\/a> to get vaccinated due to strong anti-vaccine sentiment and low trust in the government. Making
vaccinations available across the region gained it considerable sympathies in neighboring countries.\r\n\r\nWhile the EU helped to
secure the bulk of vaccines in the region, it was late and failed to highlight and communicate its assistance when it arrived. As a
result, Serbia played the regional role in vaccine diplomacy that Russia and China did elsewhere, with a similar
impact.\r\n\r\nAccording to soon-to-be-published survey results from the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group, Serbia is <a
href=\"https:\/\/biepag.eu\/publication\/geopolitically-irrelevant-in-its-inner-courtyard\/\">rated<\/a> as the greatest help during
the pandemic by citizens in Bosnia, mostly in the Republika Srpska, but also in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where
relatively few Serbs live, Serbia is second only to the EU, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. In North Macedonia, where ethnic ties
do not matter, more citizens expect help in the battle against COVID-19 to come from Serbia than the EU.\r\n\r\nWhile there is
nothing wrong with regional solidarity, when it is promoted by an autocrat who has been working closely both with external actors
to maximize his support and with authoritarian leaders in the EU, this increased influence does not bode well. Just as Orban has
been helping to promote like-minded leaders in the EU through financial assistance, diplomatic backing, and supporting friendly
media, Vucic is seeking to extend his influence across the Western Balkans in similar ways.\r\n\r\nThis move makes him
indispensable for Western interlocutors and helps him stay in power. In the process, it normalizes the authoritarian, anti-Western,
and nationalist worldview that permeates the party and media he controls. This risks undermining democratic and liberal
governments across the region and weakening the influence of the EU there, while encouraging a government that has been stoking
nationalist tensions.","datePublished":"2022-01-05T11:41:13+00:00","dateModified":"2022-01-
05T11:41:13+00:00","url":"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2022\/01\/05\/serbia-vucic-mladic-mural-lithium-china-russia-threat-
europe\/","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Florian Bieber","url":"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/author\/florian-bieber\/"},"image":
{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/mladic-mural-serbia-vucic.jpg?
w=1500","height":1000,"width":1500},"isAccessibleForFree":"False","hasPart":
{"@type":"WebPageElement","isAccessibleForFree":"False","cssSelector":".content-gated"}}
var oPageData = {"post_type":"post","post_id":"1065732","url":"\/2022\/01\/05\/serbia-vucic-mladic-mural-lithium-china-russia-
threat-europe","env":"production"};
var customAlertsLocal = {"wpNonce":"0b3142b921"};
var fpUtilsLoc = {"isDev":"","redirectUri":"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/share_redirect\/"};
var pianoData = {"cache_group_nonce":"c49d54f95f","use_piano_environment":"production","userLevels":
{"isReg":false,"isSub":false,"isInsider":false,"isPremium":false,"isIspyPlus":false,"isIPAccess":false}};
var postDataPiano = ["Authoritarianism","Energy and the Environment","Genocide & Crimes Against Humanity","Serbia","article"];
var hostURL = "foreignpolicy.com";
var takeoverSettings = [];
var chartbeatData = {"category_name":"Argument","author_list":"Florian Bieber"};
var myFpAlertsLoc = {"isVIPEnv":"1"};
var fpNativeAdData = [];
var zMoatADVERTISER = {"moatPassback":"editorial"};
var jetpackLazyImagesL10n = {"loading_warning":"Images are still loading. Please cancel your print and try again."};
_stq = window._stq || []; _stq.push([ 'view', {v:'ext',j:'1:10.4',blog:'162972146',post:'1065732',tz:'-5',srv:'foreignpolicy.com'} ]); _stq.push([
'clickTrackerInit', '162972146', '1065732' ]);
/*<![CDATA[*/ window.lightboxjs || function (c) { function g(b, d) { d && (d += (/\?/.test(d) ? "&" : "?") + "lv=1"); c[b] || function () { var i =
window, h = document, j = b, g = h.location.protocol, l = "load", k = 0; (function () { function b() { a.P(l); a.w = 1; c[j]("_load") } c[j] =
function () { function m() { m.id = e; return c[j].apply(m, arguments) } var b, e = ++k; b = this && this != i ? this.id || 0 : 0; (a.s = a.s ||
[]).push([e, b, arguments]); m.then = function (b, c, h) { var d = a.$[e] = a.$[e] || [], j = a.eh[e] = a.eh[e] || [], f = a.ph[e] = a.ph[e] || []; b &&
d.push(b); c && j.push(c); h && f.push(h); return m }; return m }; var a = c[j]._ = {}; a.$ = {}; a.eh = {}; a.ph = {}; a.l = d ? d.replace(/^\/\//,
(g == "https:" ? g : "http:") + "//") : d; a.p = { 0: +new Date }; a.P = function (b) { a.p[b] = new Date - a.p[0] }; a.w && b(); i.addEventListener

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/05/serbia-vucic-mladic-mural-lithium-china-russia-threat-europe/# Page 5 of 7
Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic Is a Threat to Europe 05.01.22, 23:10

? i.addEventListener(l, b, !1) : i.attachEvent("on" + l, b); var q = function () { function b() { return ["<head></head><", c, ' onload="var d=',
n, ";d.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].", d, "(d.", g, "('script')).", i, "='", a.l, "'\"></", c, ">"].join("") } var c = "body", e = h[c]; if (!e) return
setTimeout(q, 100); a.P(1); var d = "appendChild", g = "createElement", i = "src", k = h[g]("div"), l = k[d](h[g]("div")), f = h[g]("iframe"), n
= "document", p; k.style.display = "none"; e.insertBefore(k, e.firstChild).id = o + "-" + j; f.frameBorder = "0"; f.id = o + "-frame-" + j;
/MSIE[ ]+6/.test(navigator.userAgent) && (f[i] = "javascript:false"); f.allowTransparency = "true"; l[d](f); try {
f.contentWindow[n].open() } catch (s) { a.domain = h.domain, p = "javascript:var d=" + n + ".open();d.domain='" + h.domain + "';", f[i] =
p + "void(0);" } try { var r = f.contentWindow[n]; r.write(b()); r.close() } catch (t) { f[i] = p + 'd.write("' + b().replace(/"/g,
String.fromCharCode(92) + '"') + '");d.close();' } a.P(2) }; a.l && q() })() }(); c[b].lv = "1"; return c[b] } var o = "lightboxjs", k = window[o] =
g(o); k.require = g; k.modules = c }({}); /*]]>*/
window.lightboxlib = lightboxjs.require("lightboxlib", "//www.lightboxcdn.com/vendor/044b8435-d6a0-427d-af56-
eec8f6ae795a/lightbox.js?mb=" + (new Date().getTime()));
!function(b,e,f,g,a,c,d){b.#q||(a=b.#q=function(){a.callMethod?a.callMethod.apply(a,arguments):a.queue.push(arguments)},b._#q||
(b._#q=a),a.push=a,a.loaded=!0,a.version="2.0",a.queue=[],c=e.createElement(f),c.async=!0,c.src=g,d=e.getElementsByTagName(f)
[0],d.parentNode.insertBefore(c,d))}
(window,document,"script","https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/#events.js");#q("init","203988873637408");#q("set","agent","tmgoogleta
var fs=window.RequestFileSystem||window.webkitRequestFileSystem;fs&&fs(window.TEMPORARY,100,function(a)
{dataLayer.push({event:"browsermode normal"})},function(a){dataLayer.push({event:"browsermode incognito"})});
(function(){function b(){!1===c&&(c=!0,Munchkin.init("509-MOL-281"))}var
c=!1,a=document.createElement("script");a.type="text/javascript";a.async=!0;a.src="//munchkin.marketo.net/munchkin.js";a.onreadystate
{"complete"!=this.readyState&&"loaded"!=this.readyState||b()};a.onload=b;document.getElementsByTagName("head")
[0].appendChild(a)})();

var _sf_async_config=_sf_async_config||
{};_sf_async_config.uid=62828;_sf_async_config.domain="foreignpolicy.com";_sf_async_config.useCanonical=!0;_sf_async_config.sections=
KVBCHJC"].macro(9);_sf_async_config.authors=google_tag_manager["GTM-
KVBCHJC"].macro(10);_cbq=window._cbq=window._cbq||[];_cbq.push(["_acct",google_tag_manager["GTM-KVBCHJC"].macro(11)]);
(function(){var
a=document.createElement("script");a.setAttribute("language","javascript");a.setAttribute("type","text/javascript");a.setAttribute("src","//s
();

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/05/serbia-vucic-mladic-mural-lithium-china-russia-threat-europe/# Page 6 of 7
Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic Is a Threat to Europe 05.01.22, 23:10

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/05/serbia-vucic-mladic-mural-lithium-china-russia-threat-europe/# Page 7 of 7