Current Affairs

European governments have not said much about the protests or protest movements in Serbia. It is odd that the protests didn’t hit the headlines and its odd that the continuation of the protests are not national arguments throughout Europe as the Serbian government has been using draconian measures to control the student demonstrations.

The European Union did poke its head above the parapet once, it reprimanded the government of President Vucic for using a sonic devise, which caused chaos and hospitalised demonstrators, but apart from that nothing much has been said about the demonstrations by the European Union.

President Vucic blamed the EU for the demonstrations and argued that the decadent West was responsible for the upheaval in his country. Students in independent press releases in the media said ‘they were aghast at the corruption and incompetence of the government’ and were especially horrified by the tragedy in Novi Sad, (Serbia’s second largest city), where a canopy collapsed killing fifteen.

The collapse happened after high speed railway between Serbia and Hungary had been inaugurated in July 2024. On 1^st November 2024 a concrete canopy at the station collapsed, killing 15 people. Ana Otasevic interviewed Zoran Dajic, an engineer who oversaw the renovation of the station for Serbian company Starting, said that he “requested extra work [on the canopy], but they said it wouldn’t be cost effective and would delay the completion of the project. I resigned, because I didn’t want to work under those conditions.”

He explained that the work on the canopy had increased its weight. “The plan had been to lighten its top layers. That did not happen. Starting added even more concrete and glass,” […] ‘When hired by the Chinese contractors, [Dajic] warned them about the risks. Yet by the evening of the tragedy, government figures were […] denying that the renovation project had included the canopy.’

On 22^nd November, students gathered for a silent memorial for the victims of the Novi Sad – outside Belgrade’s Faculty of Arts – were attacked. Eye witnesses said that there had been a police cordon, but the police had let cars through the cordon where thugs got out of the cars and beat those attending the memorial. An inquiry found the attackers were prominent members of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, the students sought police protection, but the police just filmed the incident without offering the students any protection.

A survey conducted by the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade showed that 85% of the students at the states five universities supported the demonstrations. School children and teachers joined the students and even in the chamber of the national assembly there was uproar, opposition politicians lit flares, threw tear gas and smoke bombs in protest at government incompetance and corruption.

With the demonstrations escallating University lecturers and vice chancellors came out in support of the students. The students have been joined by teachers, lawyers, farmers miners and pensioners- all demonstrating across Serbia. In Belgrade and Novi Sad the demonstrations peeked at 800,000 and though the government has been shaken by the demonstrations they have fought back.

Though President Vucic gained political power from student demonstrations in the 1990s. The realisation that the students are demonstrating to challenge his power base, was countered in March by pro- government counter demonstrations, which fell flat. The government forced civil servants to take part in the counter protests but as a whole only peaked at 50,000. The government significantaly over played their hand expecting 700,000 members of ruling party to counter demonstrate, but the corruptions, incompetance and the distaster at Novi Sad, led to members of the ruling party to stay home.

There is a synergy between the way the students have organised themselves and the protests in the 1990s. But the difference is that students are demanding a retun to democracy, where the elite of Serbian society have been building institutions through clientelism, which means that the only way to survive in Serbia is to be member of the ruling party; as one student put it, “you are either a member of the ruling party or you emigrate, which explains why the governments counter demonstration fell flat.” Members of the ruling party have their grievances against the party, system of government, incompetance and corruption in the state, which took the government by surprise and led to the resignation of the prime minister.

The students blame the clientelism of the state for the corruption and incompetence in the government and its agencies. There is a strong movement among the students not to attack the government but demonstrate against what they view as the widespread inability of government institutions to manage an economy. Government contracts have ballooned as middle men (politicians and civil servants) are paid off by contractors who have had to inflate their bids for contracts by 100% to pay the middle men off and win the bid.

But it is the failure of the opposition to stand against the ruling party because they are fragmented and most of the media is under government control. Unsurprisingly the ruling party won the parliamentary, municipality and local elections in 2023 and 2024, as the opposition parties boycotted and sat out the elections because they felt they could not contest free and fair elections which they felt had been undermined by government gerrymandering, corruption and media capture.

Reporters without Borders argue that the situation in the media is “difficult”, which is only assigned to Kosovo and Serbia in Europe. Journalist are often targets of attack by members of the ruling elite and those that challenge or opposed to the government, are shut out from government press conferences, meaning they are feeding on government press releases. Amnesty International view Serbia as a “Digital Prison” and accused the Serbian authorities of ‘deploying surveillance, technological and digital repression.’ Reports of sites being manipulated and managed by pro government actors is also mirrored by the abundance of pegasus software on Journalist phones.

The demonstrators have proven they have a legitimate argument and though the ruling party continue to govern, there is a realisation that the demonstrations have challenged the ruling party significantly. European states seem to be waiting for an outcome that they are unable to predict, and though the repressive mechanisms in the Serbian state have been used to control media outlook, the students are still protesting against the apparatus of state. Whether there will be change in the way the state functions is yet to be determined, but it was the failure of Vucic’s counter demonstration in March that fell flat, which has led to a belief among the students and their supporters that they can affect change this year.