PM-Designate's pro-EU Views Leave Serbia Divided

If, as expected, Serbia's parliament confirms Ana Brnabic as the country's new Prime Minister, Serbia will have a strongly pro-EU oriented premier.

"Work that has started must be finished - and I have been dedicated for the last few months to introducing Serbia into the ranks of those modern states in which the public administration works efficiently and in the service of the citizens," Brnabic told Serbia's Tanjug news agency on Thursday, adding that she will personally be engaged in working on goals "that are bigger and more important than all of us individually".

She is widely known for her pro-EU views. A non-party expert, she was also Serbia's first known LGBT minister.

Bojan Klacar, director of the Center for Free Elections and Democracy, CESID, told BIRN that President Aleksandar Vucic's choice was both expected and logical, as Brnabic is someone with whom he can clearly cooperate.

"As Prime Minister, Brnabic will not be dominant in political topics, so the heavy political issues like Serbia-Kosovo relations and foreign affairs will still be in hands of Vucic," Klacar explained.

Klacar said it was good that Serbia had got a new Prime Minister who was strongly pro-EU, however. During the time of "former Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic, there was a lack of firm and clear commitment towards the EU," he underlined.

President Nikolic was better known for championing warm relations with Russia and its President Vladimir Putin, who, Nikolic said tellingly on March 2016, "knows all my secrets".

The opposition Liberal Democratic Party on Thursday meanwhile said it hoped Brnabic would "cut the Gordian knot" in the region - and distance Serbia from Russia among other things.

However, the...