SERBIA: European Parliament Resolution & more – 28th Oct 2025

Dobar dan from BA! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 28th of October twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

On Wednesday the 22nd, the European Parliament (EP) adopted a resolution on Serbia in which they pointed out all of the country’s shortcomings in its path to the EU — from human rights abuses to the government’s raging corruption. The resolution mainly targets the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, and its leader, President Vucic, pointing out the chokehold it has over public institutions. The EP voiced its support for student protests and their fight for democracy, urging the Serbian government to halt all violence against them. The resolution calls for the European Commission to consider sanctioning all government officials who contribute to corruption.

Recall that the students in Serbia have been protesting for a year, after a fatal collapse of the railway station canopy in the northern city of Novi Sad, demanding justice and accountability from the government.

A few hours after the news on the resolution came out, a shooting broke out in the infamous anti-student-protests tent camp nicknamed Caciland near the Parliament building. Police arrested a seventy-year-old man for attempted murder. Serbian officials were quick to brand the shooting as political, accusing the protesting students of somehow being behind the attack.

Politicians from several opposition parties condemned the ruling party officials for targeting students, noting that it was suspicious that an armed man could pass by a large number of police officers who are at all times guarding the tent camp. They accused Vucic and his allies of staging the shooting in order to push down the news of the new resolution.

Meanwhile, the NGO Civic Initiative said on Tuesday the 21st that the National Assembly's Expert Service broke the law on the electronic media nomination process for candidates for the Council of the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media, or REM elections. The elections for new REM members are upcoming, and the Expert Service is holding meetings where authorized proposers can nominate candidates for the Council. However, Civic Initiative said that the Expert Service allowed unauthorized proposers to participate in the meetings, who illegally proposed candidates. The NGO requested that the Expert Service eliminate those proposals.

Serbia has not had a functional REM council for almost a year now, after the members’ mandates expired in November of twenty twenty-four. The attempts to organize new elections for the council in June were unsuccessful, with all of the candidates withdrawing due to numerous irregularities during the voting period.

In other news, police in Belgrade prevented an anti-immigrant rally from taking place on Friday the 24th, arresting one man on suspicion that he was behind its organization. The police said that the arrested man belongs to the ultra-conservative group People’s Patrol, who promote racist and nazi values and praise Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

On the same day, the Zrenjanin Social Forum organized a rally in support of migrants at the Slavija Square in Belgrade. Thousands of people went to show solidarity with migrants and reverse the hatred spread by the extreme conservatives.

Since we mentioned the Russia-Ukraine war, Serbian nationals officially proposed to host peace negotiations between the two sides. Marko Djuric, the foreign minister, said in an interview with Fox News that the government considers Serbia perfect for that role because it has good relations with both Russia and Ukraine. Djuric highlighted that Serbia believes that the Russian devastation of Ukraine is tragic and that the war must end, emphasizing support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.

Speaking of Russia, ever since the recent US sanctions on Serbia’s gas company NIS went into effect, local media in Serbia have been reporting that the EU will ban its member states from transporting Russian gas to Serbia. However, on Wednesday the 22nd, the EU's Commissioner for Enlargement quashed the rumors, clarifying that the EU does not intend to cut off gas supplies from Russia to Serbia.

In previous shows, we have covered that the US imposed sanctions on NIS due to its majorly Russian ownership, noting that the funds Russia receives from gas directly fund the war in Ukraine. Ever since, Serbian officials have been in a state of panic, worrying that the country will be left without any gas inflows ahead of winter.

Changing gears, the National Bank of Serbia, or NBS, announced last week that net foreign direct investment, or FDI, fell by nearly sixty percent in the first eight months of twenty twenty-five year-on-year. They added that the largest investments were seen in the manufacturing, tech and construction industries. The main investors were the EU, the US and the United Arab Emirates. The NBS noted that the decrease in FDI is a result of investors not trusting the Serbian market enough due to the student protests.

Still on the economic front, on Saturday the 25th, the state’s Statistical Office published August’s average salaries. The average net salary amounted to around 105,000 dinars, which is around a thousand dollars, recording a small decrease compared to July, when it was 110,000 dinars (around 1,100 dollars). Annually, the average salary grew by around five percent. The highest salaries were seen in Belgrade, while the lowest were in more rural areas in the south.

A reminder: Our YouTube channel Rorshok.serbia is still up. We keep fighting for media freedom and against the ruling regime, which wants to take us down.

On that note about media freedom, the Independent Journalists Association of Serbia, NUNS, reported that there have been more than 280 attacks on journalists in Serbia in twenty twenty-five alone. They said that reporters from independent media received insults, death threats and were even subject to physical violence from both the police and ruling party supporters.

NUNS highlighted how problematic it is that the police participated in the crackdown on unbiased reporting, adding that their job is to bring those who instigate violence against journalists to justice.

The international journalist organization Reporters Without Borders agreed with NUNS, calling on the state to investigate the attacks, but the interior ministry is choosing to stay silent on the matter.

Going back to protests for a second, on Wednesday the 22nd hundreds of citizens gathered in front of the government building in Belgrade, demanding that the executive introduce the parent-caregiver bill into parliamentary procedure. If enacted, the law would provide parents of children with disabilities and chronic illnesses with funds amounting to the minimum wage and with pension contributions.

The protest organizers, called the Informal Group of Parents, said that there are more than 800,000 families in Serbia who struggle daily with the challenges of raising disabled children without enough money. They highlighted that these parents often cannot work because they have to take care of their children, making their financial situation even worse.

Last week we mentioned that the new Belgrade-Subotica high-speed railway just became operational, but in less than two weeks, cracks began to show - literally! The Democratic Community of Vojvodina Hungarians, or the DZVM, is demanding the immediate suspension of the train line due to newly found cracks on the railway’s underpass, flagging it as unsafe.

The DZVM told the public prosecutor’s office to conduct an investigation into the construction documentation, suggesting that the signatories and supervisory bodies could have overlooked structural issues, which could lead to the underpass’s collapse.

Closing this edition with some cultural news, Belgrade’s 68th annual Book Fair began on Sunday the 26th of October and will continue until Sunday the 2nd of November. The fair will include books from both Serbian and international writers. Tickets range from 300 dinars, which is around three dollars, to 1,200 dinars, around twelve dollars. They are available for purchase online.

For more information about the Belgrade Book Fair, check out the link in the show notes!

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