On Wednesday, the heads of state and government of the European Union and the Western Balkans met for a joint summit in Brussels. Not present: Serbia’s authoritarian President Aleksandar Vučić. He was represented by Prime Minister Ana Brnabić. Vučić thus skipped the second EU-Western Balkans summit in a row. This is not surprising. After all, he just emphasized a completely different direction for his country, namely towards Beijing instead of Brussels. He signed a free trade agreement with China. On the one hand, Belgrade has complicated the path to a possible EU membership. On the other hand, however, his move comes as no surprise given the slow progress in the accession talks.