Serbia and Hungary have signed an agreement on broad defense cooperation. The document moves toward a full-fledged military alliance between the two countries, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said. This is the first such pact between a NATO member state (Hungary) and a non-aligned state (Serbia), according to TASS’s press review on April 2.
Serbia decided to sign such an agreement with Hungary, in response to the unfriendly accords made by Croatia, Albania, and unrecognized Kosovo, with the last, in fact, banned from having an army, Anastasia Maleshevich, researcher with the Institute for International Studies at Moscow State Institute of International Relations, told Vedomosti. “For Serbia, closer military ties with Hungary, a NATO country, may, at this point, serve as a symbolic shift from the doctrine of neutrality and a forced step, but at the same time, it is meant to contain the development of regional military directed against Belgrade,” explained Yulia Semke, leading expert with the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics.
