SERBIA: A Date for the Elections? & more – 7th Oct 2025

Dobar dan from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 7th of October twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

On Wednesday the 1st, thousands joined the student-led protest march in several cities to mark eleven months since the deadly railway station canopy tragedy in the northern city of Novi Sad. Almost a year after the incident, the justice system has not been able to pinpoint who is responsible for it. Despite the stalling and the governmental oppression and smear campaigns, students are still protesting consistently for accountability from the state. Protest attendees walked across their cities in silence, holding vigils to honor the victims.

Recall that on the 1st of November twenty twenty-four, a canopy of the Novi Sad train station collapsed and killed sixteen people, some of them children, only four months after its renovation. The incident sparked outrage, with citizens blaming the government for sloppy work and disregard of the structure’s safety. The tragedy provoked the largest series of anti-corruption student protests Serbia has seen, with the main demand being early parliamentary elections.

Speaking of the elections, on Sunday the 5th, during his interview on a pro-government Pink TV, President Vucic said that the elections could take place around December twenty twenty-six - a year earlier than they are due. He noted that the constitution limits him from running for president again, and said that his government has no intention of changing the constitution.

As we mentioned earlier, citizens have been protesting for months, accusing Vucic and his government of corruption and controlling public institutions. However, Vucic is still going strong at smearing the student movement in the media, as he told Pink TV that the students are paid to protest and overthrow his government. Recall that Vucic’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party has been in power since twenty twelve.

Serbian students are also speaking out about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Ognjen Markovic, from the Faculty of Arts of the Belgrade University, was among the activists at the Global Sumud Flotilla who the Israeli forces captured on Thursday the 2nd. The flotilla was trying to deliver humanitarian aid, including food and baby formula, to the war-ridden Palestine. In it were activists from all over the world, including the Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg.

Upon receiving the news about the raid, Serbian students published several statements on social media expressing concern about Ognjen’s whereabouts, calling for an immediate response from the Serbian authorities. Unsurprisingly, Vucic ridiculed the students for calling for the state’s help while protesting against it, and called Ognjen irresponsible. So far, Ognjen has still not returned to Serbia.

Israel’s genocide in Palestine has been going on since October twenty twenty-three, with the UN-backed bodies confirming that a famine is underway, calling it a failure of humanity itself.

While on the topic of international crimes, Serbian authorities arrested eleven people on suspicion that they were spreading racial hatred in several foreign countries with instructions from a foreign intelligence service. In early September, a group of men vandalized Muslim religious sites across towns in France and Germany, and placed pig heads near nine Paris-area mosques.

On Monday the 6th, Serbian police said that they had captured the suspected criminals in Belgrade, after a farmer in France’s Normandy region said that he sold ten pig heads to people who were driving a car with Serbian license plates. The police did not specify where the detainees were from, but several media outlets have linked this incident with previous known ones: Russians had caused similar disruptions in Ukraine-allied countries, like France and Germany.

Going back to vessels for a second, on Monday the 6th, a boat carrying ten Chinese citizens capsized on the Danube River on the Serbo-Croatian border. Local media in both countries reported that the group was trying to illegally cross into the EU with the help of the Serbian man who was operating the boat. One of the passengers drowned.

This is one of the many instances of Serbia’s role as a gateway for visa-free EU entry, with foreign citizens often attempting to reach EU countries through shady and unsafe methods without having to get a visa.

In other news, the actors from Belgrade’s National Theatre staged a protest on Friday the 3rd in the capital’s central square due to recent changes to the institution's rules. Earlier, the Theatre's Management Board announced a ban on expressing political views on stage, following the actors’ open support of the students’ anti-corruption protests.

The actors refused to accept the new ruling, and during their protest on Friday, they announced the cancellations of their performances and demanded the dismissal of the Management Board’s head, who proposed and implemented the ruling.

When it comes to the economy, President Vucic announced data from the statistical office’s monthly digest about inflation and its desired limits, ahead of the report’s release to the public. He said that the annual consumer price inflation amounted to three percent in September, which is a decrease of around two percent compared to August, when the food prices quickly increased. He added that the inflation is within the target limits which is between two and five percent. Vucic said that the profit margin cap that his government introduced in August helped tame down inflation.

On the other hand, the Serbian economy is not improving in the eyes of the World Bank. On Tuesday the 7th, the Bank announced that it has lowered its forecast for Serbia’s money supply increase this year to around three percent from the previously projected four. They said that the main reason for the change is the slowdown in private and net foreign direct investment inflows resulting from political unrest and protests in the country. Construction projects and the performance of the agricultural sector have also gone down.

The World Bank projected the inflation rate to stay at around four percent on average in twenty twenty-six, and noted that the Serbian economy would improve by twenty twenty-seven at the earliest.

In unrelated news, the new Draft Law on the Tax on Greenhouse Gas Emissions is currently in public consultation. It introduces a new tax of 400 dinars, which is around four dollars, per one ton of emitted carbon dioxide gas. The government explained that the goal of the tax is to reduce pollution, since Serbia has some of the most polluted air in the world, especially in the winter months.

The law will only apply to businesses that need permits for greenhouse gas emissions, such as metal production companies and energy production companies. The government said that these factories account for around sixty percent of greenhouse emissions in Serbia, which is why they are targeted by the new tax.

In some updates on infrastructure, the government announced that the reconstruction of the railway line connecting the southern city of Nis with Belgrade will likely begin in March next year. The construction minister said that the revamp will take three years. The funds for the reconstruction come from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which allocated around 250 billion dinars, which is around 2.5 billion dollars, for the project.

The Belgrade-Nis railway link is a part of a larger Pan-European Corridor X which aims to connect central Europe to Greece’s Aegean port of Thessaloniki.

Closing this edition with some cultural news, from the 8th to the 11th of October, Belgrade will host its annual Changeover Festival of international multi-genre music. From electro-pop to punk-rock, the festival will feature over eighty musical acts from all over the world. Tickets are available online and retail from 1,800 dinars, which is around nineteen dollars, to 12,000 dinars, around 120 dollars.

For more information about the Changeover Festival, check out the link in the show notes!

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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Do daljnjeg, zbogom!