Source: AFP
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 this week.
The French president will begin a two-day visit to Serbia on Thursday, with the Rafale fighter jet deal looming large after President Aleksandar Vucic told AFP he hoped to seal the deal this week.
The agreement to purchase French Rafale jets will be one of several agreements signed during the visit, according to Vucic.
“There are thousands of things that we will have to discuss tomorrow. There are many memorandums of understanding and many contracts that we are going to sign tomorrow,” Vucic said during an interview on Wednesday.
“I think we will complete everything successfully in terms of our military-technical cooperation, which means that Serbia can become a member of (the) Rafale Club, which is a huge, huge contract.”
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A French presidency source said “intense discussions” were underway and hoped an agreement could be reached during Macron’s visit.
France has been intensifying its economic ties with Serbia in recent years.
French company Vinci is overseeing a year-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 sewage treatment plant.
Belgrade-based analyst Vuk Vuksanovic said Vucic likely saw the Rafale deal as critical to securing France’s support going forward.
The president “believes that by buying these Rafales, which are an extremely expensive product of the French military and industry, he will buy the favor and political patronage of President Macron,” Vuksanovic, a senior researcher at the Center for Security Policy, told AFP. of Belgrade.
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“We made our choice”
If signed, the deal would mark the latest in a series of moves by Serbia to curry favor with Europe.
In July, the European Union and Serbia signed an agreement to develop the country’s supply of lithium, seen as a critical building block in achieving Europe’s transition to a green economy.
Source: AFP
The Serbian government reinstated permits for a controversial lithium mine this summer after revoking permits granted to Rio Tinto in 2022 following a series of protests over environmental concerns.
Despite mass protests, Vucic vowed to remain steadfast in his support for the project and said the country had willingly chosen to sign a deal with the EU, despite possible offers from outside the bloc.
“We made our choice. It was the EU,” Vucic told AFP.
Vucic also acknowledged that Serbia had sold hundreds of millions of euros worth of ammunition to Western countries, which have likely been sent to Ukraine as it battles invading Russian troops.
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The sales come even as Serbia remains an outlier in Europe after refusing to join sanctions against Russia following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The Balkan country has for years relied on the support of the Kremlin and Beijing to prevent the United Nations from recognizing Kosovo as an independent state.
Serbia has been a candidate for EU membership since 2012, but its prospects are seen as bleak without normalization of relations with Kosovo.
Belgrade refused to accept the 2008 declaration of independence by the Albanian-majority Kosovo.
Source: AFP
