(ANSA-AFP) - BELGRADE, AUG 29 - Expectations are high that
France and Serbia will sign a deal worth billions of euros to
supply fighter jets to the Balkan country during a visit by
President Emmanuel Macron to Belgrade that kicks off Thursday.
The Rafale fighter jet deal is looming large over the French
president's two-day visit, after President Aleksandar Vucic told
AFP that he hoped to seal the agreement this week. The deal to
purchase the French Rafale jets would be one of several
agreements inked during the visit, according to Vucic. "There
are thousands of things that we'll have to discuss tomorrow.
There are many memorandum of understandings and many contracts
that we're going to sign tomorrow," Vucic said during an
interview Wednesday. "I believe that we'll finish everything
successfully regarding our military-technical cooperation, which
means that Serbia might become a member of (the) Rafale Club,
which is a huge, huge contract." A source with the French
presidency said "intense discussions" were ongoing and hoped a
deal could be reached during Macron's visit. France has been
ratcheting up its economic ties with Serbia in recent years.
French company Vinci has been overseeing a years-long renovation
of Belgrade's Nikola Tesla airport, and French groups are set to
build the capital's first metro station and a state-of-the-art
wastewater treatment plant. Belgrade-based analyst Vuk
Vuksanovic said that Vucic likely saw the Rafale deal as crucial
for ensuring France's support in the future. The president
"believes that by purchasing these Rafales, which are an
extremely expensive product of the French military and industry,
he will buy President Macron's favour and political protection,"
Vuksanovic, a senior researcher at the Belgrade Centre for
Security Policy, told AFP. - 'We made our choice' - If signed,
the agreement would mark the latest in a string of moves by
Serbia to curry favour with Europe. In July, the European Union
and Serbia signed a deal to develop the country's supply of
lithium -- seen as a crucial building block to achieve Europe's
transition to a green economy. The Serbian government reinstated
the licences for a controversial lithium mine this summer after
revoking in 2022 the permits granted to Rio Tinto following a
string of demonstrations over environmental concerns. Despite
the mass protests, Vucic has vowed to remain firm in his support
of the project and said the country willingly chose to sign a
deal with the EU, despite having potential offers from outside
of the bloc. "We made our choice. It was the EU," Vucic told
AFP. Vucic has also acknowledged that Serbia had sold hundreds
of millions of euros' worth of ammunition to Western countries
that has likely been shipped to Ukraine as it fights off
invading Russia troops. The sales come even as Serbia remains an
outlier in Europe after refusing to join sanctions against
Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The
Balkan country has been reliant for years on support from the
Kremlin and Beijing to prevent the United Nations from
recognising Kosovo as an independent state. Serbia has been a
candidate to join the European Union since 2012, but its
prospects are seen as bleak without a normalisation of relations
with Kosovo. Belgrade has refused to accept the declaration of
independence by majority-Albanian Kosovo in 2008. In a letter
published by the Serbian press on Thursday morning, Macron said
Serbia "fully belongs" in the EU, while acknowledging many in
the country had grown frustrated with the pace of accession
process. "Today, I come to Serbia again with a simple message:
The European Union and its member states need a strong and
democratic Serbia within their ranks," wrote Macron. "And Serbia
needs a strong and sovereign European Union to defend and
promote its interests while respecting its identity."
(ANSA-AFP).
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