Ana Brnabic remains prime minister in Serbia Ex-footballer Mark van Bommel escapes armed robbery

Six months after the parliamentary elections in April, 157 MPs voted for the 29-member cabinet on Wednesday evening, 68 against. The coalition is based on President Aleksandar Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), the post-communist Socialist Party (SPS) and smaller parties.

In its government statement, Brnabic, who has been in office since 2017, announced continuity, unconditional commitment to “Serb interests” and priority for the country’s energy supply. The 47-year-old is expected to take orders from Vucic.

Serbia has been negotiating EU membership since 2014, but is the only country in the region not to sign up to EU sanctions against Russia. Since the wars in the 1990s, the Balkan country has been heavily dependent on the eastern superpower, in which it waged war against Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. The EU also expects Serbia to finally normalize its relationship with Kosovo. The once Serbian province, now almost exclusively inhabited by Albanians, declared its independence in 2008.

Vucic personally presented the government list last weekend. SPS boss Ivica Dacic, who held this post from 2014 to 2020 and is considered pro-Russian, again became foreign minister. Vucic replaced the former decidedly pro-Russian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin with the previous head of the Secret Service, Bratislav Gasic, a loyal technocrat. (con/sda/dpa)