ECFR: 'Serbia's 5G deal with Washington: The art of muddling through'

ECFR's analysis emphasised that "the long list of commitments signed by the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo at the White House on 4 September includes several pledges that are related not to the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina but to the wider geopolitical interests of the (US President Donald) Trump administration."

It added that "one is a commitment by both parties to prohibit the use of 5G equipment from 'untrusted vendors', or to remove such equipment if it is already in place."

Though the documents had no direct reference to China or Huawei, "they were clearly Washington's target, as it used the Serbia-Kosovo negotiations to continue its long-running campaign against the company in Europe," the analysis said.

It added that "the 5G story allows for an interesting thought exercise in mapping out what would happen if Vucic was serious about keeping his promises to Washington."

"There are two ways for Serbia to meet its 5G pledge to the US. One is to follow the path taken by Estonia, Poland, and Romania, which – alongside the Czech Republic and Slovenia – signed individual Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with the United States committing to exclude high-risk vendors from the construction of its 5G networks... Given (ruling Serbian Progressive Party) SNS's absolute control over Serbia's parliament, he (Vucic) could quickly pass legislation that prevented high-risk vendors from supplying the country's two private telecoms operators," ECFR said.

It added that it would be even more comfortable "to stop Huawei from supplying state-owned company Telecom Serbia" since the Government could act through direct preferential procurement and thereby exclude Huawei.

"There are plenty of reasons to believe that Serbian government will not act soon to replace existing Huawei equipment or exclude the company from future 5G bids, particularly given that it has sufficient leeway to ignore the provision."

You can read the full analysis here.