SERBIA’S leaders are not behaving as everyone expected they would. When Tomislav Nikolic, until 2008 a member of a hate-spewing extreme nationalist party, became president in May, and Ivica Dacic became prime minister in July, nationalists were ecstatic, liberals dismayed and Russia’s establishment smug. After the Serbian government had worked hard for years to join the European Union and get closer to NATO, everyone assumed this effort would go into reverse.

But the men in power are confounding expectations. On December 9th Mr Nikolic lit a candle in Belgrade’s synagogue for the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. In front of guests, including a leader of Serbia’s Muslims, the president gave a little homily about tolerance. A new political persona seems to be emerging. Unlike Boris Tadic, his predecessor, Mr Nikolic appears to be settling into the role of grandfather of the country: a man who sometimes makes embarrassing remarks, but not a threat.

Mr Dacic, a former spokesman for Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia’s wartime leader, is unexpectedly conciliatory too. His apparent new best friend is Hashim Thaci, the prime minister of Kosovo, who is a hate figure in Serbia. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, and Serbia’s leaders have vowed never to recognise it.

In March 2011 the EU began a dialogue on technical matters between Serbia and Kosovo. It has moved to the political level and has made more progress than anyone expected. On December 10th traffic began moving over border crossings.

Nationalists and the Serbian Orthodox church are enraged by all this. Mr Dacic is (quite bravely) telling Serbs that Kosovo is lost and that a deal needs to be struck that secures the best possible future for Kosovo’s Serbian minority. According to Mr Dacic, only his government, with its nationalist credentials, can do it. After all, he reminds Serbs, when he was in power in 1999 with Mr Milosevic, they went to war with NATO over Kosovo.

Aleksandar Vucic, a former party deputy to Mr Nikolic, is another man of the moment. As defence minister he has been visiting the Ohio National Guard in America who train and help the Serbian army. Back home he is in charge of a big anti-corruption drive. On December 12th Miroslav Miskovic, Serbia’s best-known tycoon, and his son were arrested.

The EU put off the opening of formal membership talks with Serbia on December 11th. Even so, according to Milica Delevic, the head of the Serbian parliament’s EU committee, things are looking up for next year.

Meanwhile Serbia’s main opposition party, the Democratic Party, is hobbled. Its new leader is Dragan Djilas, the popular mayor of Belgrade. If he wants to stay mayor, which he says he does, he needs the support of Mr Dacic’s party, a coalition partner in the capital. This makes it hard also to be the government’s toughest and most credible critic.