At a time of growing threats from Russia, any hasty expansion of the EU’s border-free zone would not only be politically unfeasible and technically impracticable but also dangerous.
Nearly a year into the new Czech government’s time in office, it is clear that Prime Minister Andrej Babis ranks the Western Balkans, with Serbia at the forefront, among his top foreign policy priorities.
Both the prime minister and his foreign minister have visited the region repeatedly, while high-level meetings have also taken place in Prague. In July, Babis visited Belgrade with Trade Minister Karel Havlicek and a sizeable delegation in tow, where strategic agreements were struck, including those concerning the sale of Czech L-39 Skyfox and L-410 aircraft.
Alongside the growing economic relations between Prague and Belgrade, recent statements by Czech government officials indicate the country is positioning itself as a vocal and forceful advocate of faster Western Balkan integration into the EU and its structures.
None of this is a novelty introduced into Czech foreign policy by the current government. The Western Balkans has long held a firm place on the Czech foreign policy agenda, and the Czech-Serbian relationship in particular was already strengthening rapidly under the previous government led by Petr Fiala.
However, Czechia has never been able to translate its rhetorical support into a coherent strategy or become a truly influential actor in this complex region. In terms of capacity, Czechia naturally cannot match the key European players, led by Germany and France, in the Western Balkans. Yet the level of Czech engagement has never even reached that of other midsized Central European states that are genuinely active in the region, such as Austria, Slovenia or Hungary.
A series of recent statements by Babis regarding the region suggests that his government has decided to break through this ceiling of limited ambitions and capacity, and take on a genuinely active role in the Western Balkans.
At June’s EU-Western Balkans summit in Montenegro Babis declared that local leaders should “force the EU to let Montenegro and Albania join the EU in 2028”. Babis took this a step further during his visit to Belgrade in July, when he joined Serbian Aleksandar President Vucic in criticising the EU’s ambivalent approach to enlargement, mentioning that he “does not understand at all why Serbia is not in [the] Schengen [Area] yet”.
This was neither a slip of the tongue nor a rhetorical misstep on Babis’s part. In his address to Czech ambassadors in Prague at the end of August, Babis paid unusually significant attention to supporting Western Balkan enlargement and criticising EU policy, while reiterating that the Western Balkans, including Serbia, should have joined the passport-free Schengen Area long ago.
Yet the idea of a rapid expansion of the Schengen Area is not only politically unfeasible and technically impracticable but is, above all, dangerous. It completely overlooks Russia’s ties to Serbia, which maintains a visa-free regime with Moscow despite European pressure, turning Belgrade into a convenient hub for Russians in Europe. The ongoing investigation into the hybrid attack in Leipzig is one more piece of evidence indicating that Serbia is being used not only as a transit country but also as a base for Russian operations directed against Europe.
At a time of growing threats from Russia, any hasty expansion of the Schengen Area would represent a risk that Czech and European security structures cannot ignore.
Fast-track Schengen: a policy non-starter
Babis’s call for accelerated admission of the region into the Schengen Area runs counter to history and ignores basic realities. Croatia, the last newly admitted EU member state to the zone, waited more than 10 years after joining the bloc to join the Schengen Area. Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the EU just three years after Czechia, waited 18 years.
These delays resulted from both the technical complexity of the process and the political reluctance of certain EU members. Integrating into the Schengen system and securing complex land and sea borders presented a technical and administrative challenge for the new members. Some sceptical EU states then politically blocked their Schengen accession out of concerns over illegal migration and security risks. There is no reason to believe that either dimension of the problem will disappear in the case of Western Balkan states, which are still far from even joining the EU.
Finding allies for such a radical policy shift among other member states could prove difficult, though. States traditionally sceptical of enlargement have shown in the past that they are prepared to block Schengen accession even for countries fully integrated into the EU.
For his part, Babis defends his call for the rapid admission of the Western Balkans to the Schengen zone by citing its role in helping fight illegal migration and strengthening European security. What exactly this role consists of, and why it should represent an automatic ticket into the exclusive zone, remains unexplained by Babis.
The region undoubtedly played an important role during the 2015–2016 migration crisis, when the Balkan route became one of the most heavily used channels for irregular migration into Europe. Western Balkan states then faced intense migrant transit, which they worked hard to slow with European financial and police support. At the same time, however, these were predominantly migrants who had already passed through the Schengen Area
In later years, lower but still significant numbers of irregular migrants entered Europe through the Western Balkans by taking advantage of visa-free policies with certain non-European countries. The European Commission put heavy pressure on Serbia in particular to align its visa policy with that of the EU and end visa-free travel with India, Cuba, Tunisia, and Burundi. In 2022, the Commission even threatened to suspend the visa-free regime between the EU and Serbia.
Furthermore, despite a significant improvement in the security situation compared with two decades ago, the Western Balkans remains aion is a hub for organised criminal activities extending further into Europe, involving drugs, weapons and human trafficking. How the accelerated admission of the region into Schengen would enhance European security and contribute to the fight against illegal migration is unclear
A geopolitical trap
In the case of the Western Balkan states, the issue of Schengen accession carries a strong geopolitical dimension. While even the harshest EU sceptics did not question Croatia or Romania’s pro-Western orientation, fundamental questions remain about the true foreign policy orientation of some Western Balkan states and their willingness to align their policies with Europe.
This issue is particularly evident in Serbia, which has maintained close ties with Russia and China as part of a foreign policy that seeks to balance competing geopolitical interests, while remaining reluctant to bring its policies fully into line with those of Europe.
Certain recent gestures by President Vucic, such as hosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky or rearming the country’s air force by replacing Russian MiGs with French Rafale fighters, do not signal a Serbian turn away from Russia, but are merely a reflection of his long-standing policy of geopolitical balancing, which is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain as geopolitical tensions between Europe and Russia escalate.
A key problem with Babis’s proposed accelerated Schengen accession is Serbian visa policy, which precisely reflects the country’s geopolitical balancing act. Serbia is one of the last European states to maintain a visa-free regime with Russia, despite EU pressure to terminate it and align its visa policy with that of the EU.
In Serbia’s case, this is no minor unfulfilled task. Beyond its considerable symbolic significance, the open-door policy for Russians carries a strong economic and security dimension. Over the last four years of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Belgrade has become a major hub for Russians traveling to Europe for various reasons. Serbian state airlines operate regular direct flights to five destinations in the European part of Russia. Belgrade Airport is the only one on the European continent offering such connections, making it a key transit hub on this route.
A significant number of Russians have also settled permanently or temporarily in Serbia, which is not only easily accessible to them but also culturally relatively close. While the Serbian border police registered nearly a million single entries by Russians between 2022 and 2024, estimates put the number of Russians residing in Serbia long term at around 100,000. The Serbian government has accommodated this trend with generous residence permits and citizenship grants, in some cases through accelerated procedures “in the state interest” or even to Russians under sanctions.
What statistics fail to capture is the political profile of this new Russian diaspora. It is presumed to be a mix of pragmatically minded Russians, many of whom are successfully building businesses in Serbia; anti-Putin exiles; and prominent figures directly linked to Putin. The proportion of these individual groups remains unknown, and judging by recorded intelligence activities targeting the Russian opposition in Belgrade, Moscow is seeking that answer as well.
Furthermore, Serbia is not merely a venue for Russian intelligence services to monitor their own opposition, but also a safe staging ground for operations elsewhere in Europe. For instance, BIRN recently documented the Russian recruitment of volunteers in Serbia for the war against Ukraine, as well as training centres for hybrid operations in Moldova. As-yet unconfirmed reports of a Serbian citizen’s involvement in a hybrid attack in Leipzig and the use of Serbia for the transit of Russian operatives provide further evidence of Serbia’s role in Russian activities on European soil.
It is precisely Russia’s ongoing intelligence links with Serbia that expose the main flaw in Babis’s statements on Serbia’s rapid Schengen accession. While the prime minister defends such a plan as a means of combating illegal migration, he completely overlooks another risk that cannot be ignored during a period of escalating Russian operations against Europe. Czechia’s European allies are well aware of this risk and for this reason won’t permit any hasty expansion of the Schengen Area.
Serbia may have its place in the EU and Schengen someday, provided it genuinely desires membership and meets at least the basic political and security conditions. Ending its visa-free policy with Russia certainly ranks among them, regardless of the Czech prime minister’s disregard for the issue.
Petr Čermák is a Research Fellow at the Association for International Affairs focusing on Western Balkan politics.
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of BIRN.
Source: balkaninsight.com
