Index – Foreign – This is how the power of vaccines became in Serbia

– With this in mind, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić spearheaded the arrival of a shipment of Sputnik V vaccines in January. Vučić then spoke of a global injustice around vaccine distribution, which could result in poor countries being without vaccines even for a long time. Experts, in hindsight, see that the loud announcement was the breeze of a vaccine diplomacy strategy. Serbia has virtually become a regional vaccine powerhouse and has enviable statistics from a European perspective.

After Great Britain, the Balkan population has received the most coronavirus vaccines so far, continent by population, receiving almost 2.5 million people. Furthermore, thousands of them are foreigners. As the Index wrote over the weekend, mass vaccine tourism began in the Balkans, with the arrival of Serbia, mainly from neighboring countries Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, northern Macedonia and Albania.

All of this promises moral superiority for Belgrade, and Vučić plans for the long haul. In February, Serbian President Yuri Borisov agreed with the Russian Deputy Prime Minister that the Sputnik V vaccine would also be manufactured in Serbia. A month later, a strategy for this was completed, and an agreement was reached at the end of last week, according to which the Torlak Institute in Belgrade received the necessary permits for the serial production of the vaccine. Production is scheduled to start on May 20, and since a large part of the population will be vaccinated in Serbia by then, the target market will mainly be neighboring countries.

Serbia can be a regional producer of vaccines not only in Russia but also in China. Vučić announced in early March in the United Arab Emirates that they would also undertake the production of the Sinopharm vaccine, in coordination with China and the Gulf country. A totally new investment in Serbia is scheduled to be made by October, with the production volume supplying the drug to the entire region.

However, the agreement is not very specific yet, so far it is only a verbal agreement.

Duško Dimitrijević, director of the Belgrade Institute of Foreign Affairs (IIPE), told Index. According to the researcher, all this generates a general distrust in Serbian society while Vucic Vaccine diplomacy is generally supported by the public. This is supported by the recent increase in confidence in the government. This reinforces the image that the head of state has an extensive system of relationships in the world, effectively balancing eastern and western interests. At the same time, doubts about the economic dimension of the transactions are growing. DimitrijeviAccording to ć, foreign producers will undoubtedly gain access to a serious market, and the European Union is also likely to enter with the help of Serbia.

There are no such stringent quality assurance standards in the Balkan region as in the European Union, while EU countries are expected to need their products here.

The expert continued. He added that while it is still unclear why all this is worth it for Serbia, Vučić can already register a major victory on the front of vaccine diplomacy.

(Cover image: Alexander Vucic The Serbian president gives a press conference on the previous day’s clash in Belgrade on July 8, 2020, between the police and protesters protesting against the reintroduction of the weekend curfew. Photo: Andrej Cukic / MTI / EPA)