On improbable carrots: Serbian citizens between Kosovo* and the elusive EU membership

Abstract

Membership in the EU is sometimes presented as a reward for Serbia’s eventual acknowledgement of Kosovo’s independence. Although membership in the EU has been a strategic goal of Serbian foreign policy, the EU is often perceived as working against Serbian national interests regarding Kosovo’s status. Relying on the cognitive dissonance theory, we hypothesize that in addition to a direct negative association between the support for Serbia’s territorial integrity and the EU membership, there is also an interactive effect: the association should be moderated by one’s opinion on when and whether Serbia will become a member of the EU. These hypotheses are examined using public opinion data based on a large national sample of adult Serbian citizens. The results support the interaction hypothesis: the attitude that Kosovo should remain part of Serbia is a stronger predictor of the (negative) evaluation of the EU among those respondents who do not believe that Serbia will become an EU member in the future.