SERBIA: Activists' House Arrest & more – 27th May 2025

Dobar dan from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 27th of May twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

On Tuesday the 20th, the higher court in the northern city of Novi Sad ordered the transfer to house arrest of three activists indicted for attempting to overthrow the government, while three other activists remain in custody. Last week, we mentioned that the six activists had been in custody since the 14th of March, with the court extending their time by a month two weeks ago. After the extension of custody, students in Novi Sad blocked the court and prosecution offices, demanding the release of the activists. All of the arrested activists had participated in the student protests and faculty blockades due to the canopy collapse tragedy in Novi Sad.

Upon the transfer of the three activists to house arrest, president Vucic, alongside the former prime minister and justice minister, urged the independent judicial oversight body to determine whether that decision was justified. Recall that one of the transferred activists was on a hunger strike and her health was severely deteriorating.

However, Novi Sad students are still blocking the court and prosecution offices, adding that they will not stop until all the activists are free.

Similarly, the Novi Sad Basic Court extended the detention of four members of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, or the SNS, after appeals from the president and party members that they were doing a heroic deed. Back in January, four men attacked two student activists in front of an SNS office while they were promoting an upcoming student protest. In the altercation, one of the two students got her jaw broken, as the four men beat her with metal pipes. After the incident, the then-prime minister Vucevic resigned from his position, since he felt responsible as the leader of the SNS.

As the protests in front of the Higher court were taking place due to the imprisonment of the six activists, president Vucic and SNS members lobbied for the release of the arrested SNS men, calling them heroes who were defending the office premises. However, on Friday the 23rd, the court said that the men should remain in custody because they might carry out a similar attack if released.

In other news, more than 1,500 academics in Serbia signed a petition on Friday the 23rd, backing student calls for early parliamentary elections. In early May, after more than six months of student-led protests and university blockades, students in Serbia asked for parliamentary elections to solve the country's political unrest. Professors and academics believe that a new government is needed because the current one will not fulfill the students’ demands, which include the publishing of documents related to the Novi Sad railway station renovation and the release of all imprisoned activists, thus calling for elections.

Recall that students have been blocking all faculties in Serbia since November last year due to a lack of accountability from the state over the deadly canopy collapse incident in Novi Sad.

More and more faculty councils in Serbia have voted in favor of resuming lectures, but since the students have not lifted the blockades, the lectures are planned to be online. However, students of the University of Nis expressed dissatisfaction with such plans, and on Wednesday the 21st they blocked the Rector’s Office, demanding that he and all of the faculty deans in Nis sign their Platform. Aside from a call to officially back up student demands, the Platform is a document that calls for the deans and the rector to abolish online classes and establish communication with the Ministry of Education.

Students said that faculty deans have turned on them, pressuring them to end the blockades and continue with classes, instead of pressuring the state institutions to fulfill their demands.

Meanwhile, Kaja Kallas, the EU High Representative, visited Serbia and Kosovo on Thursday the 22nd. She told both the Serbian and the Kosovar officials that the EU has not seen any efforts in the process of normalization of relations between the two, adding that this process is the key to EU accession for both.

She talked about the normalization agreement between Kosovo and Serbia from March twenty twenty-three, which defined measures both actors need to implement to improve their relations, but underlined that neither party had made any progress. On top of that, officials from the two sides have not met since twenty twenty-three. After Kallas’ visit, officials from both Serbia and Kosovo expressed their commitment to becoming EU members.

Speaking of the EU, last week it extended a framework for restrictive measures regarding cyber attacks against the EU and its member states (including travel bans and asset freezes) as well as actions threatening the territorial integrity of Ukraine, targeting anyone who enables leading business persons in Russia to hide and shift their wealth that they are generating during the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Nearly all EU candidate countries aligned with these foreign policy decisions, except Serbia.

With the lack of restrictive measures against Russia and constantly not supporting foreign policies backed by other candidate countries, the EU noted that Serbia is seriously hindering its path to accession.

As for some positive news, the European Commission has welcomed Serbia to the Single Euro Payments Area, or SEPA, after the European Payments Council approved its membership. Serbian officials said that practical implementations of the changes introduced by the SEPA membership will start in a year.

As a SEPA member, Serbia will see benefits in international transactions, such as lower fees, as well as faster and more secure transfers. The EU’s plan behind accepting candidate countries to the SEPA program is to advance regional economic cooperation and increase pre-accession funding to improve the economic integration of the Western Balkan countries to the EU.

More about the economy as the president announced on Wednesday the 21st a planned minimum wage increase for the end of the year. He plans to increase the minimum wage from around 53,000 dinars, which is around 520 dollars, to roughly 60,000 dinars, around 570 dollars. He explained that the state will bear the cost of raising the minimum wage by either increasing the non-taxable portions of the salaries or by reducing taxes and contributions.

Even with these increases, however, Serbia remains one of the lowest-ranked countries in Europe when it comes to minimum wage, with the only two worse-performing countries being Bulgaria and North Macedonia. Currently, their minimum wages amount to less than 500 dollars. In contrast, the country with the highest minimum wage in Europe is Luxembourg with 3,000 dollars a month.

On that note about salaries, the State Statistical Office published a report about household incomes in the country for the month of March. The average monthly salary amounted to about 110,000 dinars, which is around a thousand dollars, marking an increase of ten percent compared to the same month last year. The highest salaries were seen in Belgrade’s municipalities, some reaching around 190,000 dinars (about 1,900 dollars), while the lowest were seen in the south of Serbia, amounting to around 70,000 dinars (about 670 dollars).

In an update to a story from last week’s show about a new potential gas deal with Russia, president Vucic ended up negotiating the extension of an already existing one. On Monday the 26th, Serbia officially extended the deal with Russia’s Gazprom until the end of September. The director of the state-owned gas importer and distributor SerbiaGas said that further talks about a more long-term deal will take place in June at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. He noted that the term of the new agreement depends on the international sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

Closing this edition with some cultural news, Belgrade’s Dorcol Platz will host the Festival of Alternative Fashion on Saturday the 31st under the slogan Hurry Slowly. The festival will showcase various designs from thirty women-led brands from Serbia and the Balkan region, all aiming to raise awareness about the environmental impact of fast fashion.

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

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

We hope you’re enjoying the update! If you have questions, ideas, or feedback, send us an email at info@rorshok.com.

Do daljnjeg, zbogom!