Gajic: Ending EU Talks Is Condition for Coalition
People's Party leader Vladimir Gajic says the Alternative for Serbia coalition will work only with postelection partners who accept an end to EU talks and a turn toward BRICS.
The condition for the People’s Party’s postelection cooperation is clear: any future partner has to accept an end to negotiations with the European Union and a turn toward BRICS. Party leader Vladimir Gajic delivered that message on September 28 to the Zrenjanin broadcaster KTV while presenting the platform of the Alternative for Serbia coalition, which brings together the People’s Party and the Bunt, Prava Srbija movement. In the same appearance, Gajic leveled his sharpest attack yet on the Student List, describing it as an extension of the Green-Left Front’s ideology.
The remarks echo a statement the People’s Party released the same day, in which Gajic spells out what the coalition would demand from future partners in parliament.
“The main points of our program are ending negotiations with the European Union for as long as the condition is that Serbia recognize the self-proclaimed independent state of Kosovo, Serbia’s withdrawal from the Brussels Agreement, moving closer to BRICS, an ironclad partnership with China and a fraternal partnership with Russia,” Gajic told Zrenjanin’s KTV.
With that, the People’s Party leader tied postelection cooperation to a foreign policy pivot: halting EU membership talks for as long as, in his view, recognizing Kosovo’s independence remains part of that process, withdrawing from the Brussels Agreement, and openly turning toward BRICS, alongside partnerships with China and Russia. Gajic does not present this program as a bargaining position but as a condition, a line below which the coalition will not agree to cooperate.
Who Does Gajic See as the Alternative?
Gajic presents the Alternative for Serbia coalition as an alternative on two fronts at once. On one side sits the United Serbia list, built around the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS); on the other, the Student List, which grew out of the student protest movement. He claims the Student List carries “the ideology of the Green-Left Front,” and argues that is precisely why, in his account, the list left off the name of professor Milo Lompar.
As of publication, the Student List had not responded to Gajic’s claims or commented on his assessment of its ideological leanings.
Gajic also offered his own estimate of when a change of power in Serbia might occur.
“The SNS government will not change until 500,000 of its voters cast their ballots for someone else, and right now there is no indication that will happen,” Gajic concluded.
That assessment sets a threshold: by Gajic’s reckoning, the election outcome will not shift until a share of the SNS’s existing voter base physically moves to another contender in the race. He did not say how the Alternative for Serbia coalition intends to win those voters over, nor did he name a specific election date.
Gajic stated the coalition’s position on the European Union and Kosovo without hedging, a sharper formulation than the People’s Party has generally used before, conditioning the very continuation of the talks. By his account, the foreign policy direction also banks on an “ironclad” partnership with China and a “fraternal” one with Russia, in other words a pivot toward BRICS as a replacement for the European path.
Neither United Serbia nor the Student List has reacted to Gajic’s statements so far. Whether either side will respond to the accusation about ideological alignment, or whether the Alternative for Serbia coalition will remain alone in taking this stance during the ongoing campaign, is a question the race has yet to answer.
