Hungary's Balkan Gambit: Supporting Serbia Amidst Protests

Interview with Balkans expert Ferenc Németh, who says Hungarian foreign policy is clinging to lousy leaders.

In Bosnia, Hungary has sided with the convicted separatist Milorad Dodik, and in Belgrade it is helping Aleksandar Vučić, against whom hundreds of thousands of protesters are taking to the streets. Is it certain that the armed forces have used sound cannons against the Serbian protesters?

There is video footage of a certain device being used against the peacefully demonstrating crowd, which has the same appearance and effect as a sound cannon. The Serbian leadership denied at first that the country had sound cannons at all, but later on, Interior Minister, Ivica Dačić, spoke out and even showed it to them. This was followed by the claim that the sound cannons had never been used, but Serbian investigative journalists revealed that they had been used to mass disperse refugees a few years ago.

So, the Serbian leadership went from one lie to another, while being caught in both in a matter of hours.

And then came the twist: Genasys, the manufacturer of the US sound cannons that Serbia bought, has denied that the cannon at the demonstration was theirs, but they too have concluded that there were indeed sound cannons used against the protesters.

The Serbian Deputy Prime Minister has said himself that the Russian intelligence services helped their responses to the protests.

Like denying the sound cannons? That was not very good advice. It is not clear what kind of responses the Deputy Prime Minister refers to. Vučić is currently playing for time, that is for sure.

In Moscow, the narrative is that 'the colour revolution in Serbia is supported by Western secret services seeking a change of government in Serbia. We will not allow that." Viktor Orbán is also pushing the same Belgrade-Moscow narrative.

The colour revolution narrative has for several months been the strongest element in the Serbian government's attempts to thematise the protests, conflating it with the issue of USAID funding, saying that the protests are supported by NGOs that have received funding from USAID.

Meanwhile, according to Serbian reports, Hungary is forming a military alliance with Serbia.

The new Serbian-Hungarian military cooperation is a reaction, primarily from Serbia to the cooperation of neighbouring countries, which Belgrade perceives as an anti-Serb grouping in the making. There is probably something in this, but it is more likely that Kosovo's technical rapprochement with NATO is the key.

Based on a 2023 memorandum of understanding on military cooperation, the focus could broadly be on information exchange, joint exercises and capability development. I would not be surprised if North Macedonia joined the Hungarian-Serbian military cooperation, whatever this alliance might mean in practice. What we see is reaction and counter-reaction, but nothing 'serious' or dangerous.

What is the specific purpose of the mass demonstrations?

Since last November, when they started, the demonstrators have been demanding the same thing: that all the details of the tragedy in Novi Sad should be made public, they want real accountability and a legal system that functions free of political influence. Transparency, judicial independence, liberating the institutions from the grip of politics. Whether this is to be achieved through early elections, or with a new government of experts, is secondary.

From Budapest, the scale of the protests looks astonishing. They don't seem to be bored and going home. What makes social resistance in Serbia more powerful?

The spirit of the great student protests of the 2000s, when the Milosevic-regime was overthrown, is still alive.

It sounds stereotypical, but that is the Serbian spirit. They are much more persistent.

This is not the first demonstration to last several months. Dissatisfaction has been growing for years, and what happened in Novi Sad in November has deeply affected Serbs. Especially since there were children among the victoms. But this was just the tip of the iceberg, revealing how badly the state is functioning and how much suppressed tension there is within society.

What is the social base of the demonstrations?

It is very heterogeneous, similar to the series of demonstrations in 2000, and an overall social solidarity has emerged. The government's strategy is to discredit the demonstrators and to show that not everyone is demonstrating, but there are "normal students" who want to learn. To prove this, they have now shown men in their 40s and 50s who claim to be university students in the spirit of lifelong learning...

Some of them are Red Berets and fake protesters imported from Bosnian Serbs.

Yes, and they also brought tractor drivers up, to give the impression that there are protesters and there are people on our side. They are trying all the fault lines that used to be effective: that this is a preparation for a colour revolution, that it is supported by unnamed Western powers, the Croats, Kosovo, or even the Bosniaks.

And these attempts of the authorities are now failing, one after the other.

The next step, as has been repeatedly the case, is violence. The police using rubber-batons, cars driving into the mass of protesters, arrests of students and professors etc.

Is this not very counterproductive on the part of the authorities?

It is now. Probably they miscalculated, as their aim was to incite the demonstrators to storm the parliament and thus legitimise the narrative that the demonstrators were in favour of violence and that the Serbian authorities were justified in using violence against them. But it did not work, the crowd is very disciplined.

What could be the outcome of the protests?

There is no person or movement associated with the protests that could currently form the basis of a major political party. This is an advantage in the short term, because this way, no proper smear campaign can be launched against them. But if elections were to take place, then a new political movement would need faces.

Three years ago, there were protests against lithium mining, which grew into a civilian initiative that, by Serbian standards, did quite well in the 2023 elections. The current one would probably do even better. That is why I do not think that Vučić would risk an early election, even though he has already thrown in 8 June as a potential date. But the protesters are talking about systemic problems, and changing the government is not even their declared goal.

How will Vučić react? At the same time, we see the heavy-handedness of the authorities and hear the rumours about the government listening to the voice of the people.

Vučić is playing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: sometimes he uses the harshest words against the protesters, at other times he tries to appear the constructive statesman. But I have a feeling that the use of the sound cannon was counterproductive, and more people will take to the streets after this.

I don't see how he can moderate the protests. With real reforms, he would go against his own established system. I expect that in the coming weeks there will be more and more acts of violence, large and small, by the police.

If they fail to calm the protests peacefully, they will try to do so by increasing the violence. And for the time being, the European Union is also very quiet, it has not condemned the Serbian government yet, nor has it urged it to sit down at the negotiating table.

The European Union is being cautious also because Serbia is absolutely necessary for stability in the region. Serbia is also important for the European economy because of lithium. Vučić is still a favourite.

The Serbs often condemn "stabilocracy", which reminds me a bit of the concept of the NER (the Hungarian system of national cooperation), but especially of how the West, symbolised by Angela Merkel, helped Vučić.

And it is still helping him. Angela Merkel has helped to consolidate the power of these leaders in the Western Balkans, and more broadly in the Central and Eastern European region. This is what happened in Hungary as well. In the promise of economic and political stability, the West, Germany or the EU, has condoned undemocratic methods of exercising power.

Vučić has also managed to create a system of dependency in which he makes people believe that he is the only leader in the country who wants to pursue a Western-oriented foreign policy. He is very skillful at wearing several hats, maintaining good relations with Western and Eastern powers at the same time.

And since last year, Serbia has been holding a pretty big trump card: lithium.

The EU would very much not want Serbia to cooperate with, say, China in the extraction of lithium, rather than with them.

The Orbán government is the main supporter of the EU integration of the Western Balkans. Has this helped or hindered this process?

Both. It has certainly hindered it in a way that these countries should not be allowed in, because they will pursue a policy towards the EU like Orbán. The Hungarian involvement has contributed to the negative image of enlargement policy in European circles. On the other hand, on a technical level, Hungary is helping a lot in the preparation of the accession of the Western Balkan countries to the EU. Hungary also plays its part in peacekeeping in the region, in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is currently seeking to throw out 400 Hungarian peacekeepers from EUFOR.

The countries that can succeed in the Balkans are those that enjoy the trust of all ethnic groups. Hungary has failed to do so. By supporting Dodik, the bridges to Sarajevo were burnt long ago, and this has had a negative impact on Hungary's entire Balkans policy. A few years ago, Orbán said that one of Bosnia and Herzegovina's biggest problems was that it could not integrate two million Muslims. These statements are spreading like wildfire throughout the Balkans, where the Bosniaks are not the only Muslim ethnic group.

After the court ruling, Dodik said that from that day there was no Bosnia and Herzegovina and Hungary questioned the Sarajevo court's decision. Is the Hungarian government playing at the break-up of Bosnia?

Yes, and it is very counterproductive. What Dodik is doing is clearly destabilisation. And by supporting him with such statements, Hungary is also guilty.

The Hungarian Balkans policy is not well thought out. Just as there is no really thought-out Hungarian foreign policy either.

I see only very short-term, profit-seeking foreign policy action related to the Balkans. There are favoured players whom we will not let go of even if they are politically dead. We bet everything on one card or one leader, be it Dodik or Vučić, and then we'll see what happens, we'll improvise. Regarding Dodik, I don't know whether the motivation lies in the personal relationship between Orbán and Dodik, or whether we are actually doing a favour to Vučić.

When did Viktor Orbán get closer to Dodik?

Orbán became a good friend of Vučić first, Dodik showed up later, around 2019. Orbán must have regarded the Bosnian Serbs as an offshoot of a certain kind of Serb-Hungarian friendship. I can imagine that Vučić could have been the initiator of this. The fact that Serbia often draws parallels with Trianon may have helped. They like to say that Serbia has borders with itself.

This probably led Viktor Orbán to think that it would also be good to have relations with the Bosnian Serbs.

The Bosnian Serbs have never really been oppressed within Bosnia and Herzegovina, but that is obviously the message they are communicating, with the false Trianon parallel thrown in for good measure, which is easier to sell to the Hungarians. Moreover, Dodik and Orbán share the same worldview - for example, in what they think of the West.

The sovereignist Hungarian government, by questioning the decisions of the authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is interfering in the sovereignty of another country. How is this possible?

Yes, it is an interference, but the way Hungary has reacted to the verdict against Dodik is in line with the rhetoric Hungary has used before, for example with the case of the Polish Romanowski.

You could say that we consistently interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.

What is Hungary playing at in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

The relationship with Sarajevo has deteriorated completely, and it has not deteriorated in recent months. We have given up on the Bosniaks. All political and economic capital that Hungary has at its disposal is currently being channelled into Milorad Dodik and the Republika Srpska.

If Hungary really cares so much about the stability of Bosnia, then why are we supporting Milorad Dodik, whose every utterance is working against it?

How well-founded do you consider the narrative that Viktor Orbán is actually doing a favour to Putin with all this?

It is obviously good for Putin if Bosnia and Herzegovina remains a 'no-man's land', which is very easy to destabilise. It costs the Russians nothing. In this respect, the actions of Orbán and Vučić are paying off for the Russians. But I don't see Russia in everything, I wouldn't see this Putin-Orbán-Dodik triangle as part of the story, because why would it be good for Hungary if Bosnia, for example, were to descend into another limited armed conflict?

Did US Secretary of State Rubio also send a message to Hungary when he criticised Dodik, saying that regional partners are also expected to act for stabilisation?

Yes, I can imagine that this message might have been addressed to Hungary and possibly Croatia as well. The great powers are increasingly taking notice of Hungary's activities in the Balkans, and probably not in a particularly positive way. US foreign policy does not yet represent a pro-Dodik/Vučić stance. For thirty years, it has maintained that Bosnia must be kept together, its territorial integrity preserved and any move towards secession has to be suppressed vigorously.

Would a 180-degree turn in the Balkans be possible under Trump? Dodik is now offering lithium to Trump, while at the same time talking about Hungary's involvement in the extraction of Bosnian Serb deposits.

I don't think so, even if Trump rediscovers the area on the map. Even if he does, he will rather concentrate on the Serbia-Kosovo relationship. But I think the benefits of Serbia’s relationship with the US could be rather economic, as illustrated by Trump Jr's visit to Belgrade, where the Trump-Kushner family wants to build a hotel in the city centre. This could be a hotbed of corruption, but for the time being I don't see the Serbs benefiting politically from Trump.

What about Giuliani, who flew to Banja Luka to wave next to Dodik?

Giuliani holds no position, he is the former mayor of New York and I don't think he even knew where he was. This shows that Dodik only got a former New York mayor.

Levente Magyar, the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, has openly stated that Hungary is pursuing an active Balkans policy that seeks to counter Western ambitions. Hungary is an open supporter of Dodik, who is working to dismantle Bosnia and Herzegovina, thus standing in opposition with both the United States and Europe.

I fully agree that Hungary should pursue an active Balkans foreign policy. This is probably the only region where it could do so.

The problem is that Hungary's foreign policy continues to operate in such a way that we do not really have relations with countries, but with leaders.

Leaders from whom we expect some kind of political or economic benefit - and others will be very upset about this. This also affects the Hungarian image in the region.

What do we gain through this policy then?

Politically, there is not much to gain from the relationship between Orbán and Dodik. No one in Hungary will vote for Fidesz because we get on well with Dodik. But there is not much gain from the other perspective either: Dodik would rather go to Moscow and shake hands with Putin, because there are certainly voters among the Bosnian Serbs who would applaud this rapprochement. I think this friendship has rather economic motivations.

What is the Hungarian gain in the Hungarian subsidies that are being provided to Dodik's clientele?

The subsidies provided to the Republika Srpska are subject to certain restrictions. For example, Hungarian tractors should be brought from the money etc.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina Mészáros Lorinc bought the largest cement factory from Strabag.

A Hungarian company is also working on the rebuilding of the thermal power plant in Trebinje. Large Hungarian companies have been given the task of looking for foreign investment opportunities, and the Western Balkans is the prime target area for this. There are political leaders in these countries who, because of the corruption of the system, are able to have a say in who should win a certain public procurement. To what extent Hungarian companies can operate on a market basis is another question.

Are we the only ones standing up for Dodik now?

The circle is very narrow. Vučić cannot afford not to support him, although he would prefer to see a much more restrained Bosnian Serb leadership. Putin has issued a vacuous statement of solidarity with Dodik. Sometimes Croatia supports him too, because of the close relations between Bosnian Croats and Serbs. Hungary remains the only one to support Dodik not only in words but also in practice. That is why I think it is conceivable that Dodik will not flee to Belgrade and Moscow, but to Budapest, if necessary.

What do you think of the TEK adventure? Was the purpose really to get Dodik out?

There are many question marks in the story. Why did they need seventy TEK officers? Gruevski only needed one diplomatic car.

I can imagine that sooner or later Dodik will be in Budapest having coffee with Gruevski and the former Polish Deputy Prime Minister in the restaurant by the Chain Bridge which Gruevski likes so much.

It's also possible that there was a plan that if Dodik was convicted, Budapest would be there as option B or C - although everyone knew that this would not yet be a final verdict. But why they sent a bunch of TEK soldiers there remains a mystery. If they indeed went to get Dodik out, then Dodik did a very good job of explaining how his life was in danger at his meeting with Viktor Orbán in Budapest a few days before the verdict was announced.

How well-founded is this conviction against Dodik?

It doesn't seem to be a very complicated case legally; I think it was a completely fair decision. The Bosnian criminal code states that the legislation passed by the High Representative must be respected, the penalty is one to three years imprisonment. Dodik has quite clearly violated that, he completely disregarded the laws.

The High Representative with special powers is also referred to by the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affair when it claims that the West treats Bosnia as a colony.

The High Representative's position was created by the 1995 Dayton Agreement, the fourth annex to which is still the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The High Representative stands above all, he is the supreme executive and legislator in the country. He can even remove politicians if he sees them working against the Dayton system. Christian Schmidt, the current High Representative, uses these special powers, but with caution.

Hungary is now using an anti-colonial rhetoric to criticise this arrangement, but also to criticise keeping the country intact. Am I right in thinking that the deputy to the High Representative in Bosnia is Hungarian?

Yes, Schmidt's deputy, the diplomat in charge of the Banja Luka office, is Hungarian. There must have been a strong Hungarian lobby behind this. This is also very contradictory: we have lobbied to achieve something, he is the best diplomat in the whole country to be an expert on the Balkans and Bosnia, and now we are making it difficult for him to do his job.

Could Bosnia and Herzegovina survive without a High Representative?

Not for the time being. It would require a change in the generation of politicians to do this, because politicians today are not looking after the interests of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the interests of Bosnian Croats, Bosnian Serbs and Bosniaks. The High Representative's task is to somehow manage to hold the country together in a headwind.

What will happen now to Dodik, who would destroy the Dayton regime and with it Bosnia and Herzegovina?

The question now is whether the Bosnian institutions will be able to adhere to the verdict, to enforce the national arrest warrants issued against Dodik and two other top politicians.

On that basis, the police must arrest them, and that applies to all police forces.

The Bosnian Serbs, in open defiance of the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, have voted that the verdict is not in force on their territory.

Yes, Republika Srpska has started to set up its own institutions in the past days. But in the meantime, the Bosnian institutions are still functioning, and the Bosnian Serbs have not abandoned the central institutions. If there are arrests, they will not be made in Banja Luka, but at the airport or at the external border, because border control is a central competence, which means that it is not carried out by Bosnian Serbs.

Is Dodik's power weaker than he wants to show?

Dodik's power is weak. And since his conviction, his leverage has been weakening too. He knows his room for manoeuvre is getting more and more limited. He has strong internal challengers who also oppose his current moves. I would not say that they are any less nationalist, but they have at least recognised the real problems of the Bosnian Serbs.

Unemployment, emigration, corruption, organised crime.

The Bosnian Serb population is dwindling at an alarming rate, unemployment is high, while the family economic circle kept alive by Dodik is getting richer. When Dodik really started to push the separatist theme, his relations with Vučić also deteriorated. A few years ago Vučić still managed to keep Dodik in check, but now he doesn't always succeed.

Has Orbán's ally got out of hand?

Dodik is out of control, and this is also damaging Vučić's international image. He cannot afford to openly part with Dodik now, but during the previous elections he was secretly supporting his opposition.

Dodik is now pushing the possibility of a federation with Serbia even harder than before. Is he trying to offer Republika Srpska to Vučić in order to keep the support of the Serbian president and thus his own power?

Yes, but that would not be so good for Vučić. The Western allies would not appreciate him supporting a border change, moreover Kosovo could also say that they will then unite with Albania.

There was an alleged draft with similar content, which would have redefined the Balkans in a similar way as you just described, among other things, and which, according to a leak, would have been supported by Viktor Orbán.

I am sure that there are politicians in almost every country who would like to see such changes. But they do not think about the practical consequences of a possible border change. I do not see any territorial changes taking place in the Balkans in the near future. That would not solve most of the political problems.

In any such crisis, fears about the breakout of another Balkan war arise. How exaggerated are they?

There are political circles that can profit from such war rhetoric in the Balkans, but in practice no politician would agree to it. Let me put this in practical terms. If a new state were to be created, say an independent Republika Srpska, it would be unviable. The economy is in ruins, the population is dwindling. There is no money to fight wars, no adequate army. The memories of the 1990s still linger in the Balkans, and ordinary people do not want war in these countries.