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A wave of protests is sweeping Serbia. Dissatisfaction with the policies of President Aleksandar Vučić is growing. The protests began long before the current student unrest. They have been going on almost continuously since January 2024. The reasons change regularly. Dissatisfaction with possible electoral fraud, environmental protests against the Anglo-Australian company Rio Tinto, demonstrations against the LGBT march in Belgrade, discontent among farmers, strikes by education workers. The country is frankly feverish. The last straw for the discontented was the tragedy in Novi Sad, which occurred on November 1, 2024. The collapse of a canopy at the train station killed 15 people. This provoked a new wave of protests. The Serbian authorities are accused of total corruption, which led to human deaths.
The core of the protest base is the student body. By law, every faculty of every university in Serbia has its own student parliament. In each of them, the protesters have formed an “emergency” parliament and make decisions by voting on disobedience actions, which are coordinated between faculties. Student unions make agreements with various social organizations to hold protests. Farmers’ unions, teachers’ unions, lawyers’ unions, veterans’ unions, and consumer protection associations have already joined the protests. The government of Aleksandar Vučić accuses the protesters of trying to implement a “color revolution” scenario similar to Ukraine in 2004, 2014, or Yugoslavia in 2000. Political analysts compare the current protests to the French student protests of 1968.
Officially, the students made four demands to the current government. The first is the publication of all materials and documentation about the derailment of the train in Novi Sad. The second is the identification of all those who attacked students and teachers during the protests and to bring the attackers to justice. Third – to stop the criminal prosecution of all participants of the protests. Fourth, an increase in state funding for higher education. No one has yet issued an ultimatum for the resignation of President Aleksandar Vučić, although dislike for him among the protesters is enormous. The authorities claim that all demands have been met. 16 thousand documents on the reconstruction of the Novi Sad railway station have been posted online. 13 protesters threatened with criminal prosecution were pardoned. The Ministry of Finance announced an increase in funding for universities.
And yet the protests have not stopped. They are only growing. On March 15, huge numbers of people turned out to protest in Belgrade – from 107,000 (according to the Serbian Interior Ministry) to 1 million (according to the protesters themselves). Despite a few incidents, the protests were generally peaceful. However, the wave of protests is not abating. The protests have been going on for almost five months without a break. Any random violence could lead to a sharp escalation of the situation. The ability of the authorities to control the situation is questionable. The structures of Aleksandar Vučić’s supporters, such as the “Student 2.0” tent camp in the Pioneer Park of the Serbian capital, are few in number and subject to fierce information attacks by the opposition.
The authorities accuse the protesters of playing into the hands of outside forces. Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin believes that the real goal of the rallies is to overthrow the president and bring to power politicians obedient to Brussels, who will impose sanctions on Russia and nationalize Serbia’s oil industry. The protesters themselves dismiss such rhetoric as information noise. They say that the government is trying to throw dust in the eyes of public opinion and the Russian public. Pro-Russian symbols are actively used at the protests: Russian tricolor, imperial flags, and Orthodox symbols. Serbian state flags are the most conspicuous. At the same time, attempts to use the flags of Ukraine and the European Union are suppressed by the demonstrators. The demonstrators often carry banners and placards with insulting statements against NATO, the EU, and the Kosovo separatists.
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The European Union prefers to remain silent on the issue of protests, which is very uncharacteristic of Brussels. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is alarmed by the EU’s passive strategy. “In Belgrade, the EU also faces the most popular defiance against it: Unlike in Georgia or Moldova, Serbian protesters disillusioned with the EU’s appeasement of Vučić have not carried European flags or appealed to Brussels for support. However, Brussels’ soft spot for Vučić may soon become untenable,” writes Iliriana Gjoni, a specialist of the non-profit organization. It is worth noting that the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is close to the Central Intelligence Agency. The former head of the organization, William Burns, was appointed director of the CIA immediately after his position as head of Carnegie.
The United States of America has taken a very cautious stance. Unlike in 2000, when the United States openly supported the coup against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, the State Department now prefers not to criticize Aleksandar Vučić. The Serbian president met with the son of US President Donald Trump Jr. and discussed “strategic cooperation” between Belgrade and Washington. Trump Jr. had previously visited Serbia in the fall of 2024. Mr. Vučić was publicly supported by Richard Grenell, Special Envoy of the President of the United States of America.
In general, Mr. Vučić’s foreign policy course satisfies both the EU and the US. The Serbian president uses nationalist rhetoric, but in reality he is leading his country towards Brussels and Washington. The non-observance of sanctions is not a principled position of the Serbian leader, but a desire to appease the extremely pro-Russian public. Whenever it is possible to demonstrate his loyalty to Europe, Vučić does so without any problems. For example, Serbia voted in favor of the recent anti-Russian resolution in the UN General Assembly. A short time later, the Serbian Foreign Ministry withdrew its vote due to a “technical error”. Official Belgrade supports the “territorial integrity of Ukraine”. In September, Vučić equated Russia’s Special military operation in Ukraine with NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999.
The benefits of Vučić’s overthrow for the European Union are highly questionable. The Serbian president is open to a “solution” of the Kosovo problem, as evidenced by the signing of the Ohrid Agreement in 2023. Nationalists, who have joined the current protests en masse (especially such a popular structure as Narodna Patrola), reasonably accuse Vučić of creeping recognition of Pristina’s sovereignty. The exodus of ethnic Serbs from Kosovo continues: in 2023 alone, about 10 percent of the region’s Serb population left. Right-wing political forces are unhappy with Vučić’s numerous demonstrative gestures, such as recognizing the “genocide” in Srebrenica and effectively refusing to defend political prisoners in The Hague (Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadzic and others).
Aleksandar Vučić is a convenient tool for Brussels to Europeanize Serbia, whose population is extremely nationalistic. Since 2010, the number of citizens in the Balkan country who support joining the European Union has dropped from 63 percent to 42.8 percent. In some ways, Vučić’s policies can be compared to the pro-European course of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2010-2014, but the difference is striking. Yanukovych’s opponents were ultra-radical pro-European forces. Vučić’s opponents include a large number of very pro-Russian and nationalist activists, as well as liberals. The student protests were supported by the famous film director Emir Kusturica, who had previously openly supported the Special military operation and applied for Russian citizenship. Rap singers from the well-known nationalist group “Beogradski Syndikat” also spoke out in favor of the protesters.
There are two options acceptable to the European Union. The first is to keep Aleksandar Vučić in power and let the protests die down. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace calls this option “stabilitocracy”. The West does not need unpredictability in the Balkans, and Vučić is a very predictable, understandable and systematic politician who is not prone to impulsive actions. The second is to intercept the protests with the help of liberal political activists to prevent nationalist pro-Russian forces from seizing power, which could challenge the status quo in the Balkans. The second option is facilitated by the decentralized nature of the protest. The acts of disobedience have no clear leaders, no clear leadership, and cannot be “decapitated”. The protesters see this as a great advantage. In reality, however, it weakens the protest itself and allows any political force that receives substantial financial and organizational support from abroad to ride the protest wave.
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finally the truth on foreign (non-serbian) language. every single word is truth. many thanks to author of this article. greetings from serbia
i echo that !
vucic must go. vucic is corrupt.
serbia has been under the attack of foreign ngo’s for long time . somehow all those money and propaganda operations have never resulted in anything to increase prosperity for any one .
one of the best articles i have read on this topic. very realistic and non biased report
serbia must pay for its crimes. die chetniks! regards from illiriana.
kosovo endured serbo-zionistic terror by moshe piade, and all chetniks, (partisans) and now is free from cancerogenjc serbian savagery and influence.
kosovo is a narco terrorist enclave totally under the thumb of the jewsa.
serbia attacked all countries from slovenia to kosovo. emir kusturica is bosnian coward and traitor, son of an udba (like cheka) formation guy who declared him self as a serb. his family from his fathers and mothers side were killed by so called ‘shkia’ chetniks in bilecha and around. serbs thinks theg can do whatever they wants to, but forgot that they can’t do it anymore.
serbians are trying to be always on wining side. niw they do not like ukies, while them ukies have came to help those savages to commit horrendous crimes from slovenia, croatia, bosnia, and finally kosovo. bill clinton gave them so called ” serb republic”, so they should be grateful to him.
serbians will always tell you that say nato did aggression on them, but will never tell you why.
serbians are brought to balkans by the turks from asia minor, saint sava is first ortodox, no before. stefan prvovjenčani (his brother) was catholic.
serbians thinks that they just like chosenites can do whatever they want to do, and that are always right, and all others are wrong. servian oppression to others is but over.
if someone believes that the eu is not behind this. they are really naive. everyone knows, from the confession of the us – that the orange revolutions were organized by the us. elsewhere, protesters are paid $150 a day, probably there too. at least for those who are organizing. people get involved when you first hire enough people for the streets.
and why if the leadership is brussels-minded you ask? in the eu, the leadership is elected frequently, and the new meps no longer know the background of things. just as no one, apart from victor orban, was at the 2008 nato summit where the ukrainian war was decided, according to merkel and hollande’s admission. so the new leadership may want the power to change at once.