Fico Skipped the Dinner in Brussels for Vučić's Stage: "I Didn't Come to Lecture You on How to Vote"

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico last night took the stage on Liberty Square in Novi Sad, at the campaign rally of the list "Aleksandar Vučić - United Serbia", and addressed the crowd in Serbian. "Who said I wouldn't be here? Here I am, dear people of Novi Sad!" Fico began. He added that he was sorry he couldn't come to Belgrade two weeks ago, so he wanted to express his support for his friend in person.

Then came the sentence worth reading twice. "I didn't come to lecture you on how to vote, the way some other foreigners do, as if they knew better than you what you need and what's good for you," Fico said. He said it as a foreigner, from a campaign stage, at a rally for one of the lists, ahead of the 25 October elections. If that isn't lecturing, it's at least a very loud recommendation.

The reasoning was longer. Vučić, according to Fico, defends "sovereign Serbia" and its right to make its own choices. Those who would like to turn Serbia "into a shadow" don't like that, he said, "and that's exactly why they set new conditions for membership in the Union." The prime minister of an EU member state declaring from someone else's campaign stage that new membership conditions are being set to make Serbia smaller - you don't hear that every day. In Skopje, meanwhile, the line about "new conditions" sounds painfully familiar.

Fico didn't forget Kosovo either. "When it comes to Kosovo, we will never let you down," he said. Slovakia is one of the five EU members that don't recognise Kosovo's independence, so in Belgrade this message is heard as a guarantee. Fico also thanked the authorities for how they treat the Slovaks in Vojvodina, who, as he said, will soon get a Slovak House too.

Vučić responded with emotion. He said Fico told him he wouldn't be at the dinner in Brussels, but was coming to Serbia to support his friend and "brotherly country." "Serbia and I have always been and always will be with Slovakia," Vučić said. The organisers and pro-government media claim there were more than 100,000 people on the square. Among the guests was Milorad Dodik.

The most interesting detail, though, came earlier in the day. In front of reporters, Vučić complained that Kurti, Đukanović and Plenković had publicly backed the student list, and said that was "bad for the country." So when foreign politicians support the other side, it hurts Serbia. When a foreign prime minister climbs onto your stage, it's friendship.

The Balkans see this before every election, from every side. Candidates count other people's foreigners and call their own friends. Will we ever see an election campaign in the region where the loudest guests on stage aren't prime ministers from other countries?