German daily Handelsblatt said that Russia, China and Turkey are fighting for influence over the Western Balkans along with the European Union.

It recalled that the state-controlled Russia Today opened its Balkans office in Belgrade in autumn 2022 adding that Moscow’s goal is to keep the Western Balkans out of the EU and prevent NATO enlargement. “Looking at the statistics, Putin’s strategy seems to be working: According to a recent poll by the Balkan Free Media Initiative, 95 percent of Serbs see Russia as a true ally,” it said.

Handelsblatt said that big powers fought over the Balkans for centuries and are doing so again. “Then as now: Turkey acts as the protective power of the Balkan Muslims. China is strategically moving along the tracks of its new Silk Road. And Russia is focusing on propaganda and energy policy. Serbia in particular is the focus of international actors,” it said.

It recalled that Serbia, an EU candidate country, is the only Western Balkan state which has not aligned with the Union’s sanctions policy against Russia and is the only one buying weapons from both Russia and China. The daily said that the European Commission has both praised and criticized Serbia – for accepting Ukrainian refugees and voting in favor of 2 UN General Assembly resolutions on Russia and for refusing to impose sanctions.

According to the daily, Russia relies on Serbia’s energy dependence. It recalled that Russia’s state Gazprom Neft bought the Serbian NIS oil company and controls the majority of Serbia’s oil and gas infrastructure.

The speed of Serbia’s accession to the EU also depends on a solution for Belgrade-Pristina relations, it said.

Handelsblatt said that Telekom Serbia is the authorities’ top propaganda tool and has received part of its financing from the Russian Sberbank and that it allows Russia Today to use its cable networks.

Antoinette Nikolova of the Balkan Free Media Initiative told the daily that Vucic “skillfully plays on the pro-Russian sentiments of the Serbs” and added that pro-Russian trolls are active on social media earning up to 300 Euro a day to incite anti-Western discussions and have pages blocked that make statements hostile to Putin.

Handelsblatt said that Russia’s closest ally China is also active in the Balkans.

“The Chinese news agency Xinhua, unlike the American and European agencies, provides free news content,” the daily was told by Dragan Djukanovic, a political scientist at the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Belgrade. “Russian state media are particularly active in Serbia. Moreover, there are no media in Serbia where EU orientation is visibly expressed,” he said.

It said that there have been disagreements between Moscow and Belgrade and cited the example of the Russian mercenary group Wagner us videos in Serbian via Russia Today to recruit Serbs for the invasion of Ukraine. “Vucic expressed anger and was clear: „For us, Crimea is Ukraine, Donbass is Ukraine, and it will stay that way,” it said.

The German daily said that China is investing heavily in the region through its Silk Road project. “The investments China is making in this region have a lot to do with maritime connectivity,“ says Jens Bastian, CATS Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). China gradually expanded its land-based operations to the Western Balkans and then to the EU via Hungary with the Belgrade-Budapest railway as one of its most expensiv land-based projects in the EU.

According to the National Bank of Serbia, China was Serbia’s largest foreign direct investor in the first half of 2022 with 491 million euros – ahead of the EU. However, the long-term investments between 2010 and 2022 speak a clearly different language: 19.2 billion euros came from the EU, 3.3 billion euros came from China and 2.5 billion from Russia, Handelsblatt said.

As for Turkey’s role in the region, the daily said it is economically overshadowed by Russia, China and the EU in countries like Serbia: In 2022, Serbia received only 0.73 per cent of foreign direct investment from Turkey… but, according to the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Belgrade, it creates a lot of jobs for local unlike China where the majority of jobs its investments create are reserved for Chinese nationals.

Turkey’s economic presence has grown over the past 20 years. Foreign trade between Serbia and Turkey increased from 327 million euros in 2006 to 1.2 billion euros in 2022. In 2018, a loan of 285 million euros was agreed for a motorway between Belgrade and Sarajevo. Construction by the Turkish construction company Tasyapi began last year.

Journalist and long-time Balkans correspondent Thomas Brey said that there were fears that Turkey was trying to create a new Ottoman and that the Serbian leadership does not want to offend President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. According to him, Turkey, a strong NATO state, could be seen as an important balance player alongside the Russian and Chinese.

Despite the influence of China, Russia and Turkey, Serbia’s future lies in the EU, according to the Belgrade political scientist Djukanovic. Belgrade, he said, knows that it can continue to count mainly on EU support in the future. “What is needed is a more significant EU campaign on the part of the Serbian government and the Serbian media to demonstrate a real image of investment and close ties with the EU,” Djukanovic said. Because whoever has Serbia on their side has the most influence in the region, Handelsblatt said.