BELGRADE – Three months of protests in Serbia can be a lesson in “European values” for the European institutions that claim to stand for them. Demonstrators in the EU candidate country are outraged at their government’s creeping repression of fundamental rights, but also at the lack of reaction from Brussels.
The spark this time was the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad, a city of about 300,000 people in northern Serbia, last November. It killed 15 people. While officially an accident, the collapse is seen as a consequence of the country’s corruption.
University students have spearheaded the civic response. Across the country, protesters have been demanding more transparency, criminal accountability and upholding rule of law. In short, they want what the European Union claims to stand for. Yet the dividing line in Serbia is not, as other protests in eastern and southern Europe have been framed, between pro- and anti-EU positions.
If anything, the EU is mostly a sideshow in the heated domestic discourse about Serbia’s future.
Fighting for EUniversal values
"I don't see any reason why anybody should not support us," Milica Ivković, a 22-year-old student at the University of Belgrade, told The Parliament.
If international backing is absent, domestically it is widespread. People of all ages have joined marches or cheer them on. Schools are closed, or teachers, parents and pupils gather to discuss the state of democracy and education. Artists are mobilising against the heads of cultural institutions.
Every day at 11:52 a.m., the time of the Novi Sad incident, students block major road intersections. They are met with little frustration from drivers stuck in the ensuing traffic.
"The goals we aim to achieve are European values," Anja Despotović, a 25-year-old university student, told The Parliament.
At the same time, she said Serbian students are sorely disappointed over the lack of support from Brussels — or even interest. In an open letter in early February, Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos acknowledged “concerns” over freedom of assembly, rule of law and accession-related reforms in Serbia, but fell short of naming any concrete actions.
Media coverage has been minimal, as well.
"We feel that we have been left alone, as if our fight is not considered important or significant by the EU,” Despotović said.
Brussels may not be stirred to action, but Belgrade is. Many hold President Aleksandar Vučić, whose democratic backsliding is often compared to that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, responsible for the corruption and, ultimately, the 15 deaths in Novi Sad.
“From a consolidated democracy, we have become a hybrid regime,” Srđan Majstorović, the chair of the European Policy Centre (CEP) in Belgrade, told The Parliament.
European values — and interests
Since Vučić came to power in 2012 — first as prime minister — Serbia has fallen in international indexes concerning fundamental rights and democratic institutions. Courts are under the influence of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and public procurement contracts often go to pro-government elites. Voting irregularities, including allegations of fraud, voter intimidation and unfair conditions — were noted in early parliamentary election in 2023.
Prime Minister Miloš Vučević resigned in January, in hopes of calming the situation. Yet civil society and independent media remain at risk of a crackdown by authorities, who have shown little willingness to engage in dialogue with demonstrators. In a recent instance, Serbian police raided the offices of four NGOs that investigate corruption, electoral irregularities and other breaches of fundamental rights.
“The regime is panicking because widespread corruption cannot lead to the criminal accountability demanded by the population,” Isidora Stakić, a senior researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, told The Parliament.
The domestic pressure, however, can only do so much without external support. The EU’s silence, critics say, risks emboldening the Vučić government’s increasingly autocratic behaviour. As a result, questions surrounding Serbia’s future in the EU have become more polarised and you will be hard-pressed to find an EU flag being waved at any of the protests.
"By turning a blind eye, the EU is in a way helping the regime to abstain from responsibility," Majstorović said.
One area with Serbia that the EU has been active in is raw materials. The bloc has been looking for ways to secure its supply chains of the resources it needs to realise its energy and digital transitions. To that end, the bloc signed a lithium agreement with Serbia in July 2024.
Serbia’s Jadar river valley, in the eastern part of the country, is home to one of the world's largest deposits of the in-demand element. That has given Vučić some leverage over the EU, as he “approaches foreign policy as a matter of trading with partners," Jelica Minić, the vice president of the European Movement in Serbia, a pro-EU non-profit, told The Parliament.
Much of the population opposes the lithium mining project, leaving the EU to see "no clear alternative to Vučić on the horizon,” Minić said, as far as economic interests go.
For the protesters, this is a bitter hypocrisy. It shows that the “EU places its interests above its core values,” Lenka Vučković, another student active in the protests, told The Parliament. “Especially when this concerns our soil, quality of life, democracy and people.”
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