SERBIA: EU Against Vucic & more – 9th Sep 2025

Dobar dan from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 9th of September twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

On Friday the 5th, a student-led protest in the northern city of Novi Sad turned violent after a police intervention. The interior minister Dacic said that the police arrested forty-two students, after they raided the Faculty of Philosophy, whose students are still blocking. He added that thirteen policemen were injured in the raid, but didn’t give any evidence to support his allegations.

On the other hand, videos showed the anti-riot police violently entering the faculty and starting to beat people who refused to leave the campus. Aside from students, journalists fell victim to police brutality that night too, with some being forced to lie on the ground and others even being arrested, despite the very clear PRESS signs on their clothes.

Recall that the faculties in Serbia have been blocked since early December, in protest of the lack of accountability for the collapse of the railway station canopy in Novi Sad, which took sixteen lives.

Some EU officials reacted to the increased police violence in Serbia against those who protest the regime of President Vucic. Sandro Gozi, Secretary General of the European Democratic Party, addressed Vucic in an open letter, where he said that the increased police repression over peaceful protesters could hinder Serbia’s EU accession efforts.

Gozi referenced Vucic’s letter to Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission President, sent in mid-August, in which Vucic blamed the lack of progress in the accession path on protesting students. Gozi said that such allegations are riddled with hypocrisy, adding that the letter blames the victims of repression. He added that Serbia belongs to the EU, but not Vucic and his policies, denials, and statements.

Gozi was not the only one to criticize Vucic for his ways. The European Commission took notice of the president saying in a recent public appearance that Vula Tsetsi, the European Green Party president, was “the worst European scumbag” for participating in a student protest last week, and accused the party of backing unrest in Serbia.

Marta Kos, the European Commissioner, accused Vucic of having a questionable understanding of democracy due to his words. Kos added that Serbia has a serious problem with unrest, due to the ten-month-long protests, and she urged the country’s leadership to focus on the EU reforms that they had promised, especially regarding media darkness and the rule of law.

In more news from the European Commission, it recently conducted a survey on the citizens of the Western Balkan countries’ support for their nations entering the EU.

In Serbia, only thirty-three percent of the respondents said that they are in favor of the country joining the EU. Political analysts in Serbia said that the liberal, pro-Western Serbians do not trust the EU anymore, due to a lack of action against Vucic’s corrupt regime, police brutality and media darkness. They noted that a majority of Serbians also look down on the EU due to the 90s conflicts, such as the war in Bosnia and the bombing of Serbia, and the recognition of Kosovo’s independence by most Western states.

Serbia was the lowest-scoring country in the region, while Albania had the highest, with ninety-one percent of its citizens being in favor of joining the EU.

Serbia remains divided between those in favor of and those against Vucic’s regime. On Sunday the 7th, ruling party supporters participated in rallies against the student blockades in over 120 towns and cities across the country, but students also held protests in some of them. Anti-blockade protesters held signs that read I want to go to school and I want a normal life again, despite the attendees of the rally being mostly elderly people. The media also reported instances of the ruling party members threatening people to participate in the anti-blockade rallies in order to keep their jobs.

On the other side, protesting students were careful not to cross paths with the pro-government rally attendees, advising citizens to avoid any conflict as it could end up in police repression. Students repeated their demand for early parliamentary elections, saying that their goal was to establish a fair system that could bring closure to the canopy collapse case.

While protests entered the 10th month mark, President Vucic left the country for China to attend a World War II victory parade accompanied by Russian President Putin and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un. Despite the condemnation from the West for rubbing shoulders with some of the most oppressive leaders in the world, Vucic boasted about his good friendship with Putin and Serbia’s relations with Russia.

However, Vucic did tell Putin that Serbia is currently facing pressure to pick a side between Russia and the West. He then went on to say that he will ensure Serbia never imposes sanctions on Russia in an effort to maintain good relations.

On another note, the Belgrade Pride parade took place on Saturday the 6th but this year it was a protest — a totally different format from previous editions. Organizers of the march said that they intended to voice their support for students and denounce the ongoing police violence against peaceful protesters in the country. Attendees held banners stating Gays against police state and Pump it up! which has been used as a chant during the student protests.

Pride organizers spoke about how the LGBTQ+ community empathizes with students and protesters, since they experience violence daily. Even though there are usually attacks against the parade participants orchestrated by the conservative extremists, this year, there were no incidents.

In some news about the economy, Serbia’s public debt reached around four trillion dinars at the end of July this year, which is around forty-five billion dollars. The Ministry of Finance said that this amount represents around forty percent of the country’s GDP. Serbia’s debt decreased by around one percent from June to July.

Speaking of the GDP, the latest issue of the monthly journal Macroeconomic Analyses and Trends reported that Serbia’s GDP from January to July grew by around two percent compared to the same period last year. They added that the industrial production is also on the rise, with the first half-year physical volume produced being around six percent higher than in twenty twenty-four. They added that the year-on-year inflation for the first half of twenty twenty-five stood at around five percent.

In other news, market inspection checks of retail chains began on Friday the 5th to determine whether they are complying with the new regulation, which affects around 20,000 products by limiting margins in trade chains to twenty percent, making the products cheaper for consumers.

The trade minister Lazarevic said that there were several cases of retail chains trying to bypass the new Regulation on Limiting Trade Margins, which came into effect on Monday the 1st of September.

Meanwhile, The Belgrade City Library announced last week that it launched the first book streaming app in Serbia. Titled Storia Audiobooks, the app offers an audio experience of hundreds of books in Serbian, from classics to more contemporary works, and even children’s books! Some of the authors whose books are available include Ivo Andric, Danilo Kis, and Momo Kapor.

The library said that their members are entitled to a one-year-long free trial of the app, and after that, they can subscribe for 600 dinars, around six dollars a month, or 6,000 dinars, which is around sixty dollars, a year.

Ending with some more cultural news, Novi Sad will hold its annual film festival from the 17th to the 21st of September. The Novi Sad Film Festival will include a feature film competition for both domestic and international movie directors. It will also feature other screenings and panel discussions to promote film art in Serbia, and specifically in Novi Sad.

For more information about the Novi Sad Film Festival, check out the link in the show notes!

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

Do you want to send an episode? You can download any shows at www.rorshok.com/serbia as .mp3 files. Link in the show notes!

Do daljnjeg, zbogom!