SERBIA: Political Corruption & more – 25th Feb 2025

Dobar dan from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 25th of February twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

On Sunday the 23rd, thousands of students gathered in the northeastern town of Vršac for another protest seeking justice for the victims of the train station tragedy in the northern city of Novi Sad, where a canopy collapsed and killed fifteen people. Farmers, professors and other citizens also joined the protest, where they blocked one of the busiest roads in town for five hours. Attendees paid respects to the victims of the Novi Sad tragedy and released fifteen doves - one for each victim.

As we stated in previous shows, ever since the tragedy, student-led protests have been demanding accountability from the state and justice for the victims, blaming the raging corruption in the country for the canopy’s failure.

Due to corruption being one of the main topics of the student-led protests currently, president Aleksandar Vučić launched a campaign to fight against corruption and has been ordering arrests left and right to prove the country’s speedy reaction.

On Friday the 21st, authorities arrested Dragana Sotirovski, the former mayor of Niš and a member of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS. She was accused of abusing her position, laundering money, and is suspected of stealing half a billion dinars, which is around four million dollars, from Niš’s budget.

The authorities also arrested Nemanja Stajić, the former head of Belgrade’s office in charge of issuing legal permits for property, for obtaining financial benefits by illegally legalizing buildings in the city. The head of the Clinic for Emergency and Clinical Toxicology at the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade was arrested on similar charges.

Despite the fight against corruption being led by president Vučić, the founder of SNS, almost all of the arrested individuals have some connections to the ruling party. The Serbian daily newspaper Danas reported that there are many SNS members who are dissatisfied with the fight against corruption coming from their officials. Vučić even added that an SNS membership would not keep anyone safe from the arrests.

Dejan Bursać, a research associate at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, spoke with Danas about the president’s campaign and said that SNS is riddled with corruption, which many citizens have been aware of for a while now. Bursać said that the turning point was the fatality of the Novi Sad incident, where many blame corruption for directly costing Serbia fifteen lives. He predicted a shift among ruling party officials, due to the members feeling threatened by the anti-corruption campaign, and added that they are likely to move to other parties where they can continue their political careers, that is, being corrupt.

Still on the tragedy of Novi Sad, on Wednesday the 19th, the informal Inquiry Commission for the Investigation of Responsibility for the Canopy collapse appealed to the government to withdraw a bill related to the implementation of the International Specialized Exhibition EXPO.

The Inquiry Commission is composed of experts and university professors who aim to investigate the circumstances of the canopy collapse. The members of the Commission have warned that many actions related to the EXPO project in Serbia are problematic, and some unconstitutional. These include the potential for money laundering, and the lack of an environmental impact study.

In the meantime, the Novi Sad city assembly held a session on Monday the 24th with only its ruling party members present, where they elected SNS official Žarko Mićin as the new mayor of the city. During the session, a police cordon prevented the opposition members from entering the assembly, and violently pushed them away. Citizens gathered in support of the opposition, and protested the session by throwing eggs, flour, and red paint at the police officers.

Opposition councilors condemned Mićin’s election, adding that they were illegally prevented from attending it.

On Friday the 21st, Kosovo authorities shut down several Belgrade-backed institutions providing basic social services to Serbians in Kosovo, accusing them of being linked to the Serbian government and not accepting the Kosovo government. One of the institutions that were shut down was the Social Work Center. Recall that Kosovo police have shut down multiple Serbian institutions in recent years, believing they harmed Kosovo’s policies and authority. The Belgrade-backed Serbian List party in Kosovo condemned the action and said that it was a threat to the security of Serbians there.

Aside from the Serbian List, the action received condemnation from the EU as well. One of their spokespeople talked to the Serbian news outlet N1 and said that the closure of these structures negatively affects the daily lives and living conditions of the Serbian community in Kosovo.

While on the topic of Kosovo, Jorn Rohde, their German ambassador, accused the Serbian government of interfering in the Kosovo parliamentary elections which took place earlier this month. Rohde said that Serbia promoted votes for the Serbian List party by telling its citizens that they would lose their welfare checks if the party lost. He said this was manipulative.

However, Petar Petković, the head of the government’s Office for Kosovo, responded to Rohde and accused him of crossing diplomatic boundaries whilst declaring to be politically neutral. Petkovic accused Rohde of being against Serbian List winning in the elections (which it didn’t), adding that the Serbian government never intended to hide its support for Serbian List.

On another note, on Monday the 24th, the UN General Assembly adopted a draft resolution calling for peace in Ukraine, with a majority vote. Afterwards, president Vučić said that Serbia had made a mistake and should not have participated in the voting. He added that it should not pick sides between Russia and the US. However, Serbia voted against the resolution.

Speaking of Russia, on Tuesday the 18th, Belgrade-based news outlet Kompas reported that Russia is ready to sell six percent of its interest in the Serbian-owned oil company NIS. Kompas noted that this was Russia’s response to the US sanctions on NIS for its partial Russian ownership. Russia currently holds around sixty percent interest in NIS, while Serbia owns around thirty percent.

The US imposed sanctions on NIS in January to target Russia’s energy sector used to fund the war in Ukraine. Serbia still has not decided how it is going to circumvent the sanctions, but it is leaning towards buying out the Russian share and reselling it to someone else.

In other news, Balkan Insight Research Network, or BIRN, held a webinar on Friday the 21st on internet freedom in southeast Europe. When it comes to Serbia, BIRN said that it has witnessed more online violence than the majority of the Balkan countries. They said that Serbia is currently at its worst when it comes to digital safety and internet freedom, due to the constant spread of misinformation which is promoted by the government. Additionally, the research noted that Serbian officials excuse violence when it caters to their policies.

In some economic updates, the Political Union initiative called on the citizens on Friday the 21st to boycott gas stations due to high petrol prices. Members of the initiative said that Serbia has some of the highest gas prices in Europe, noting that a liter of diesel or gasoline, which is around thirty fluid ounces, costs around 200 dinars, which is around two dollars. The average price of diesel and gas per liter in Europe is around a dollar and fifty cents.

Still in economy, the National Bank of Serbia, or NBS, held a presentation last week where it discussed economic trends and projections for twenty twenty-five. The NBS stated that in January, the inflation stood at around five percent, which exceeded the NBS' projected inflation by around 0,5%. Additionally, the NBS projected an increase in the country’s GDP, thanks to the investment growth in fixed assets and exports.

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

In case you didn’t know, besides the Rorshok Serbia Update, we also do others! We’ve got many country updates from Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe. But we also have non-country updates, including the Arctic Update, about the area north of the Arctic Circle, the Multilateral Update, about the world’s major multilateral institutions, and the Ocean Update, about the 70% of the world covered in salt water,

If you want to check out the full list of updates, go to rorshok.com/updates. The link is in the show notes.

Do daljnjeg, zbogom!