While much of the recent news cycle in the EU has been consumed with the second Trump administration’s 'flooding the zone' with norm-pummeling, disruptive executive orders, popular action for democratic standards and rule of law continues to build throughout Serbia.
Yet the policy posture from Brussels remains on autopilot, effectively siding with authoritarian president Aleksandar Vučić against the student-led protesters, continuing happy talk about the enlargement process
Along with Ukraine and Georgia (where popular mobilisation against another Moscow-friendly autocratizing regime also continues), Serbia is a democratic frontline.
This bottom-up struggle has enormous regional and European significance. In his 12 years of rule, president Vučić has made his regime a trailblazer for modern European rightwing revanchism, the primary driver of regional instability in the Balkans, a hub for Russian and Chinese influence and disruption, and a magnetic pole for modern far-right ethnonationalism and genocidal ideation.
The ongoing protests were triggered by the collapse of the concrete roof at the entrance of the Novi Sad railway station on 1 November, which killed 15.
The government initially tried to deflect public horror by denying that the recent renovation of the station involved work on the collapsed awning, which was rapidly shown to be a lie.
Popular outrage soon blossomed into protest, led by university and secondary school students, with traffic stops of 15 minutes – one for each killed – at 11:52, the time of the collapse.
Protest leaders have been subjected to arbitrary detentions; the government has characterised the protests as being a call to “civil war” and a “colour revolution” backed from abroad (implying the West).
Threats of docking scholarships and other sanctions against students have been made by officials. Violence has been directed at protesters – with two incidents of students hit by cars driven by regime supporters.
Each new threat and manufactured conspiracy backfired, building popular support and engagement behind the protests, which on 24 January culminated in a general strike, drawing solidarity throughout Serbia.
This Saturday (1 February), a blockade of bridges throughout Serbia is planned.
These protests are the latest in a series that began in 2016 over the illegal demolition of a Belgrade neighbourhood to make room for the massive Belgrade Waterfront high-rise development.
A brutal attack on an opposition candidate in Kruševac generated the statewide “1-in-5 Million” protests against Vučić, beginning in December 2018.
Protests against lithium mining in western Serbia, a relatively prosperous agricultural region, halted a Rio Tinto project in 2022.
But it was resurrected in July 2024 under the guise of “green transition”, with great fanfare and EU (particularly German) support. This announcement generated massive popular outrage.
The connective tissue of all these protests is evident: popular distrust in a government under the firm grip of Vučić and his party, in a state structure which was already highly centralized before he assumed power. Serbia, well before the Novi Sad station disaster, has exhibited the hallmarks of state capture.
The posture of the US and EU toward the nonviolent student-led protesters has been effectively the same.
The EU Commission enlargement director-general, Gert Jan Koopman, was quoted in regime-aligned Politika as having told Serbian civil society that the EU “will not accept or support a violent change of power in Serbia.”
This echoed Vučić’s own public musings and deflection.
While participants in the meeting told independent journalists that Koopman's actual statements were far less explosive, the commission failed to respond to queries which would have allowed it to clarify its position.
Trump’s envoy for special missions Richard Grenell struck a regime-friendly tone, arguing that the US didn’t support "those who undermine the rule of law or who forcefully take over government buildings," ignoring the fact that the only violent force exerted was by regime backers against the demonstrators
On Monday (27 January), EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas stated that “stability” was the Union’s priority in the Balkans – effectively supporting those who hold power at present.
Perversely, this messaging mirrors that of Russia and China. Vučić’s lame efforts to paint the demonstrations and general strike as a “colour revolution” have fallen flat with the Serbian audience, but are echoed in Moscow.
Students and Serbians writ large have every right to feel betrayed by those who proclaim democratic values but spurn those seeking to see them actually implemented.
The West clearly aims to protect its sunk costs in Vučić, despite the nature of his rule — or regional destabilising effects. Benefits include the aforementioned lithium mining deal, “making arms available for Ukraine” through sale to intermediaries, and the sale of Rafale fighter jets.
In addition, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner is investing in a hotel project on the site of the General Staff building in Belgrade, bombed by Nato in its operation to end Serbia’s war in Kosovo in 1999.
But the policy predated these factors, centred on the concept of Serbia as the regional power and an alleged “factor of stability.” Even attacks on neighbours orchestrated from Serbian territory have not shaken the EU’s effective appeasement policy.
Popular success in ousting Vučić and pursuing systemic change would send an unmistakable signal to the far-right elsewhere in Europe and North America: Serbia is a cause célèbre for far-right culture warriors, and people have seen the rot this culture has delivered.
Bottom-up solidarity behind demands to institutionalise dignity — people power — is what they and those who profit from their divisive narratives fear.
Serbia cannot begin to confront its past and build a real future under current management — and it is the main revanchist power in the former Yugoslav space. The regional conflict system, centred on Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, and involving all but one of Serbia’s neighbours (Albania), could not function without a grievance-based irredentist agenda (embodied in Srpski Svet [Serbian world]) from Belgrade.
The effective collaboration of the 'established democracies,' apart from some principled legislators in the European and national parliaments, is shameful. It is a morbid symptom of the health of democratic antibodies in the European body politic. A systemic infection is indicated.
Serbia’s protests for justice, dignity, democracy, accountability, and rule of law deserve support from 'small-D' democrats worldwide.
Thus far, the solidarity has been concentrated in the region, including in Sarajevo, Zagreb, and Vukovar. The protests may not be make-or-break for European democracy, but they may well be for Serbia, with wide regional impact. This is the best chance since 2000 for a breakthrough in that direction.
To live up to its values, as well as pursue its long-term interests, the EU needs to adopt policies conducive to a truly democratic and representative Serbia, accountable to its citizens and engaged in positive relations with its neighbours.
This entails not only a shift in the EU’s messaging, but an independent review of its failing enlargement policy — something which it lacks the will to conduct on its own — and a commitment to heeding the results. History will not forgive Western leaders who support the forces of reaction – or remain on the fence.
Kurt Bassuener and Toby Vogel are co-founders and senior associates of Democratization Policy Council, a think-tank based in Berlin.
Kurt Bassuener and Toby Vogel are co-founders and senior associates of Democratization Policy Council, a think-tank based in Berlin.