Srdanović: Bad Relations With the Neighbours Were Created "in One Man's Head", and His First Call Was With Plenković

Serbia doesn't have a new government yet, but the man who led the winning list has already said the sentence the neighbours have been waiting years to hear. Ilija Srdanović, head of the Student List that won the snap parliamentary election on 25 October, told a Sarajevo daily that the blame for the region's bad relations lies in one place - Aleksandar Vučić's head.

"I think it's clear to everyone that the previous period, which wasn't just 14 or 15 years of one man's current, untouchable and absolute rule, was one of the most important reasons for the bad, often undiplomatic conduct of our foreign policy. It was created in one man's head. Unfortunately, that one man's head didn't do enough to calm the region," Srdanović said.

Pro-government media in Belgrade had their reaction ready: Srdanović, they say, is preparing to apologise to the neighbours, just as, in their telling, the former democratic governments did. The statement contains no apology - it contains a diagnosis. But for part of Belgrade, the diagnosis alone is already treason.

The first call - to Zagreb

Even more telling is who he started with. Srdanović's first conversation was with Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković - and the Serbian public learned about it from Plenković, not from Srdanović. Whether that's mere courtesy or the first move of a new regional line, the coming months will show. And the fact that the winner didn't think he needed to announce it at home himself says something about how he'll handle communication with his own public.

After the years Srdanović himself describes as "undiplomatic conduct", a change of tone would mean a lot for the whole region. But tone isn't policy. In the interview he talks about the past and about "one man's head". What exactly his government will do about Kosovo and Russia - we've yet to hear.

And Skopje? Macedonia, together with Belgrade and Tirana, carried the "Open Balkan" initiative, a project Vučić personally pushed. Will the new Serbian government keep that legacy, or put it in the same drawer as "one man's head"? Good-neighbourly relations sound nice in an interview. We'll see whether they survive the first crisis.