On November 1, 2024, the canopy of the recently renovated Novi Sad train station collapsed, killing 15 people. The renovation work had been opaquely awarded to a consortium of Chinese companies. The tragic accident sparked a protest movement, first in Novi Sad and then throughout Serbia, denouncing widespread corruption, media censorship, the concentration of power, the influence of Russia and Chinese capital, and the repression of dissent. It's no joke: in December, a demonstration as large as those that precipitated Milosevic's downfall took place in Belgrade, and on Saturday, it was the largest in the country's history.
Serbia's corruption is no surprise: according to Transparency International, in 2024 Serbia had a score of 35 on the corruption index (which ranges from 0 for maximum corruption to 100 for minimum corruption) and was ranked 105th out of 180 countries analyzed. What is a surprise is the relative indifference with which the student uprising has been received in the European Union, and arguably in European society as well.
Now that the European Union must strengthen itself to defend European values against the American threat, it is surprising that it has not made more decisive gestures to help the protest movement. In February, student pressure—not European pressure—forced the resignation of Prime Minister Milos Vučević, but Aleksandar Vucčević, the czar Serbian, remains comfortably ensconced in Novi Dvor, the seat of the country's presidency. The European Commission, which is negotiating Serbia's accession to the Union, has not issued any sign of support for the student movement. As Markus Kaiser of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom said in an interview, "Just as the EU addresses and punishes violations of the rule of law in its member states, it could also do the same with EU accession candidates, since Serbia remains one of them."
To understand the stakes in Serbia, it is enough to look at who supports President Vucic. On February 11, just days after the controlled fall of Prime Minister Vucic, a debate on the "political crisis" in Serbia took place in the European Parliament. With varying emphasis, MEPs from the European Conservatives, the EPP, the Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, Renew Europe, the Greens, and the Left expressed support for the student mobilization, while those further to the left called for a more proactive stance from the Union. In contrast, Hungarian MEP Annamária Vicsek (Patriots for Europe), a co-religionist of Viktor Orbán, complained that the strikes in schools and universities across the country undermine the right to education. MEP Petr Bystron (Europe of Sovereign Nations), a member of Alternative for Germany, went further, calling the unrest in Serbia "the last twitchings of a globalist network."globalist] who has organized these protests around the world for decades" and which Donald Trump and Elon Musk are now happily destroying. According to him, globalists "do not want independent nations, but obedient vassals." Thierry Mariani (Patriotes) criticized the attacks against Serbs in Kosovo.
Beyond the interventions in this unusual parliamentary debate, there is abundant evidence of Vucic and his entourage's ties to the European far right. To give just one recent example, during the last election campaign in Germany, a Serbian government minister, Milica Durdevic Stamenkovski, imitating Elon Musk, supported Alternative for Germany at a rally held in Lobäu (Saxony), without being rebuked.
JD Vance told Munich that the main threat to Europe does not come from Russia, China, or any other external actor, but from within. Tweaking his rhetoric slightly, we could say that Europe's internal enemy is Vance's ultranationalist allies, the so-called patriots who renounce European values. In the European Parliament debate, Slovenian MEP Vladimir Prebilic said that young people in Serbia are fighting with courage and dignity for the democratic values on which the European Union is founded: democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. "Their voice is clear: they want a country that respects European values." In that pursuit, he said, "they should be an example for us all."
