Serbian Progressive Party leader Tomislav Nikolic (C) is greeted by his supporters during a pre-election rally in Belgrade, May 15, 2012. (Photo: Reuters)
Serbian president-elect Tomislav Nikolic will make his first trip abroad to Moscow but dispelled suggestions of favouring Russia by vowing Thursday to visit Brussels as soon as he is sworn in.
Nikolic is flying to the Russian capital to meet President Vladimir Putin Saturday and speak at the congress of the ruling United Russia party's congress, media reported Thursday.
The trip could fuel the fears of observers who worry that Nikolic's election will slow Serbia's approach to the European Union as it reaches out to its traditional ally, regardless of his election promises.
While the nationalist vowed on winning the May 20 vote that Serbia will stay "on the EU path", many remember him saying in 2007 that he would prefer to see "Serbia as a Russian province rather than an EU member."
Nikolic was quick to balance his attentions to Moscow and the EU, telling Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak that his first official visit after taking office would be to Brussels, sometime in the coming weeks.
Lajcak was the first senior official from an EU country to meet Nikolic and came as an informal envoy of the bloc's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
"I told Mr Nikolic that he is now in a position to create first impressions and send signals about how he is going to lead policy," the Slovak minister told journalists Thursday.
"He confirmed to me that his first official visit after the inauguration would be Brussels and that European integration remained a priority for him," he added.
Serbia's new president, who surprisingly defeated incumbent Boris Tadic in the May 20 run-off, has always been staunchly pro-Russian.
But he has transformed himself from an anti-Western, anti-European ultra-nationalist into a pro-EU populist in the last four years. During the campaign he stressed the importance of EU membership for Serbia while at the same time keeping close ties with Moscow.
Serbian media said Nikolic's visit to Moscow was planned before, but the meeting with Putin was added after, his election victory.
"The first trip abroad of a newly-elected president has a symbolic meaning and in that sense this trip to Moscow certainly has a symbolic meaning," political analyst and former Serbian ambassador to Germany Ognjen Pribicevic said.
"It could be seen as an attempt to balance Serbia's two foreign policy goals -- relations with Russia and the EU," Pribicevic told AFP.
Serbia in March obtained EU candidate status but has yet to meet conditions to secure a date for opening talks. Brussels has made it clear it wants to see more progress in relations with breakaway Kosovo.
Nikolic, like his pro-European predecessor Tadic, maintained that Kosovo -- considered the cradle of Serb civilisation and still the seat of the powerful Serbian Orthodox Church -- could be a make-or-break issue.
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