On March 1, a Chinese Airbus A330 landed at the Belgrade airport, carrying medical devices and medical experts who arrived from China to combat coronavirus in Serbia.
This act of “goodwill” occurred a few days after Vucic declared a state of emergency in Serbia, emphasizing the importance of Serbian-Chinese cooperation.
So, according to him, he sent a letter to the Chinese leader, in which he addressed him “as the brother of all Serbia”, and said that “China is the only country that can help.”
In response, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said that “… mutual support has always been a defining feature of Sino-Serbian relations … at a time when the Serbian people are faced with a pandemic, we will shoulder it together.”
And why should China send help to a small European country?
The fact is that initially the EU refused to any assistance to Serbia, which created a certain “vacuum”, which hastened to fill China. Brussels has banned the export of medical care to non-EU countries.
This caused a negative reaction in Serbia, which is why Vučić called European solidarity “a fairy tale on paper,” and recalled that this decision was made by the same people who “gave a lecture to the Serbs that Chinese goods should not be bought …”
This is not the first time that the European Union has “clogged up” EU candidate countries during various disasters: the situation was similar during the 2008 economic recession and the migrant crisis of 2015-2016.
As soon as the EU turned away from Serbia, China appeared, which is proved by $ 4 billion of direct Chinese investment and $ 5 billion of loans allocated to Belgrade by Beijing.
And what about the EU?
This time, as soon as Brussels realized that Serbia was slipping away from its sphere of influence into the arms of the Chinese dragon, they immediately rushed to fulfill the “duty of European solidarity” (complete hypocrisy).
So, after the words of Vučić that “only China can help Serbia”, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell called him and promised 7.5 million euros to help Serbia, and Norway allocated 5 million euros.
A few days later, the EU in panic generally provided Serbia with assistance worth 93 million euros.
However, it was too late!
News of this heroic (no) deed of the EU did not hit the front page of one of the most popular daily Serbian newspapers, Politika, in which front-page articles on the arrival of Chinese aid were published.
The fact remains that no European solidarity actually exists.
“Together” can be different.
It is one thing to fight together with a pandemic without leaving someone in trouble who you have certain obligations to do, and it is another thing to shake together in a fit of political hysteria and impose collective sanctions against mythical aggressors, in trying to explain to your citizens the meaning of huge military budgets.
For such a “together” no effort is needed.
But who will need the EU itself?