SERBIA: Belgrade-Novi Sad March & more – 4th Feb 2025

Dobar dan from BA! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 4th of February twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

On Thursday the 30th of January, a group of three hundred students in Belgrade started their two-day march to the northern city of Novi Sad in order to show persistence and to join their peers in the upcoming protests there. The march from Belgrade to Novi Sad is one of the many protesting activities that are part of the nationwide student-led protests, which have been going on for the past three months. Recall that such an uproar began due to the lack of accountability from the state after the railway station canopy collapse incident in Novi Sad left fifteen people dead. One of the main student demands from the state is the prosecution of those responsible for the canopy collapse.

Due to the growing attendance at the protests and the students' persistence in not backing down from their goal of bringing justice to the victims, the Nobel Committee confirmed the nomination of Serbian students for the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, the 31st.

One of the issues surrounding the student-led protests in Serbia is the media darkness —that is, the spread of misinformation about the movement and the lack of reporting on the matter by the most viewed TV channels in the country. However, on Saturday the 1st of February, the pro-government Radio Television of Serbia, or RTS, featured an objective report on a protest in Novi Sad for the first time since the protests began. The Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS, scolded them for it, accusing them of breaking the code of objective reporting, and went on to announce that they would initiate processes to protect Serbian institutions from the spread of misinformation, but failed to elaborate further. The RTS published the letter from the SNS, which marked the first time the state-owned media company had stood up against the ruling party.

The RTS’s unbiased report is especially significant due to its status as the most viewed channel in Serbia’s history and its decades-long history of regime favoritism and biased reporting.

In support of the student protests, the Serbian Bar Association went on a thirty-day strike on Sunday the 2nd. Lawyer Vladimir Terzic from the association said that they would only work on cases that involve preclusive deadlines so as not to harm their current clients. Aside from showing solidarity with the protesting students, lawyers also said that the lack of accountability from the state officials for the Novi Sad railway station tragedy was a hit to the rule of law.

Prior to this work suspension, the Bar Association had already attempted to go on a week-long work stoppage in January, but the decision was overturned by the Higher Court in Belgrade, causing the lawyers to suspend work for three days on two separate occasions.

With its history of using spyware to target citizens, last week the government received a geolocation and eavesdropping system from Switzerland they had purchased back in twenty twenty-three. Swissinfo, a Swiss news company, reported that the system is valued at around 250 million dinars, which is around two million dollars, and is used for intercepting mobile phone traffic and tracking user location data. However, they did not specify whether the system went to the Serbian government directly, or if the government handed it to state institutions such as the security agency or the interior ministry.

Recall that last year, the human-rights-focused NGO Amnesty International revealed that Serbian intelligence services illegally used spyware to collect sensitive data of anti-government activists and journalists. In return, the violated users have been left traumatised by the targeting, with no one facing consequences.

On Friday the 31st, citizens across multiple Balkan countries joined in on the boycott against large supermarket chains due to their unattainable high prices. Croatia introduced the boycott on the previous week, and managed to successfully lower the sales at supermarket giants by around thirty percent.

In Serbia, citizens were appalled by prices being higher than in other European countries, which have more stable economies and higher salaries. Many took to social media, posting price tags that are up to four times higher than in other countries such as Germany, Italy and Austria.

Recall that in October, we reported on the investigation by the Commission for the Protection of Competition against four large retail chains in suspicion that they had engaged in retail price-fixing.

Speaking of price hikes, the government of the southern city of Nis announced changes to the bus ticket purchasing system, including a rise in ticket prices. Up until now, the cost of a one-way bus ticket for a continuous trip in the city cost eighty dinars, which is around seventy US cents, and they were sold by the bus drivers. Now, if passengers want to keep paying this price and not the increased amount, they will have to buy the tickets at a verified kiosk or through the NiCard app. If they purchase the ticket from the bus drivers, they will have to pay 150 dinars, or around a dollar.

Many citizens of Nis are dissatisfied with the changes, mostly because of the lack of verified kiosks, and the ticket app not working properly, prompting them to buy the tickets at the higher price from the driver. However, the biggest complaint is that while ticket prices are rising in Nis, the citizens of Belgrade enjoy free public transport. Nis residents also highlighted that Belgradians have the highest salaries in the country.

Fortunately, Sinisa Mali, the finance minister, announced on Thursday the 30th the reduction of student tuition fees by fifty percent. Mali said that this price shift is an attempt to fulfill the fourth demand of the protesting students, which is an increase to the higher education budget by twenty percent. He added that the government allocated an additional twelve billion dinars, which is around a hundred million dollars, for the higher education budget, which made the fee reduction possible.

In some news on energy, last week, the governments of Serbia and Azerbaijan signed an Agreement on Cooperation in energy and mining. The two countries agreed to invest in each other’s energy sectors, particularly in the fields of natural gas. They also stated that they intend to engage in energy-related projects. Recall that last month, state-owned energy company NIS faced sanctions from the US due to its Russian ownership. In response, Serbia is looking to diversify its energy supply, working with Azerbaijan on implementing the Southern Gas Corridor which will supply Serbia with gas.

When it comes to the environment, on Thursday the 30th, Serbia's environment ministry launched a procurement for the construction of solid waste transfer stations and recycling yards, as well as the upgrades of the existing ones, in the central town of Kalinic. The tender is part of a larger project that aims to improve waste management in the country so that it is in line with EU standards.

As of Monday the 3rd, citizens will be able to submit applications for subsidies ranging from 30,000 to 580,000 dinars, which is around 250 to 5,000 dollars, to buy new electric vehicles. The deadline for application submission is the 31st of October. The minister of Environmental Protection said that the subsidized purchase of electric vehicles is part of a set of measures to improve air quality in Serbia.

Now for some news about culture. On Saturday the 8th, Belgrade’s MTS Hall will host a concert of Ennio Morricone's film music and a screening of the film Cinema Paradiso by Giuseppe Tornatore, with Morricone’s music as part of a project titled Cinema Harmony.

For more information about the event, 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!