SERBIA: Pro-Regime Rally & more – 20th May 2025

Dobar dan from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 20th of May twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

On Saturday the 17th, president Vucic held his announced three-day-long rally to promote his People's Movement for the State in the southern city of Nis - but it lasted for only a couple of hours. Even though it was announced as the meeting that is going to bring in half of Serbia, there were not even 20,000 participants — more than ten times less than the student-led protest in Nis, which took place on the 1st of March. As the local media noted, most of the attendees were paid to be in the rally and nearly all went there by organized buses from all over the country. During his speech, Vucic mocked students, telling them that he didn't care about their demands, and that he would never fulfill them.

On the other hand, students in Nis organized a protest during Vucic’s rally titled Shoo from Nis. Students gathered on a square close to the city center, where they read speeches letting Vucic know that he was not welcome in their city. Tensions were high during the overlapping events, as the authorities set up barricades to separate the two masses of people. Still, four incidents occurred between the two groups, including clashes with journalists and injuries to two students.

Over in the northern city of Novi Sad, students are blocking the High Court building for the fifth day in a row due to the two-month-long detention of six activists. On the 14th of March, one day before the largest protest in Serbia, the Novi Sad police arrested some activists and students on charges of preparing an act against the security of Serbia. Upon their arrest, an audio recording of a wiretapped conversation from a meeting of activists surfaced on national television where they discussed the idea of ​​a transitional government.

The defendants' attorneys argued that the Serbian security services wiretapped the conversation illegally, saying that the audio recording couldn’t be considered legal evidence to present in their trial. Still, on Thursday the 15th the Court in Novi Sad prolonged the activists’ detention for an additional month, despite numerous civic assemblies and the European Parliament calling for their release.

Alongside the protests, students in Serbia have been blocking their faculties for six months now, meaning that there are no classes or exams taking place because their demands calling for the state’s accountability for the Novi Sad railway station tragedy are still left unfulfilled.

The pressure on universities is rising with the Ministry of Education threatening to issue penalties due to the lack of lectures and exams, putting the faculties at risk of losing their working licences. The faculties’ only saving grace is the early parliamentary elections, which the students officially called for the 5th of May. They explained that they would end the blockades once the elections were over, when a government that could fulfill their demands was elected.

However, the president said last week that he would call the elections in the next year and a half, which could significantly prolong the faculty blockades.

Speaking of student movements, on the 30th of May at 1:30pm, Manuela Rouger, psychologist and Ph.D student at CONICET and FLACSO, along with her advisor Dr. Alicia Barreiro will give a talk at the Jean Piaget Society Conference twenty twenty-five, at the University of Belgrade, titled The Development of Critical Action and Critical Reflection in Argentinian University Student Unions Participants. They’ll analyze the political participation of young students, the development of their capacity to reflect on the inequalities existing in the society in which they live and the scope of the actions they carry out with the aim of transforming it.

You can register to attend on the website www.piaget.org/. We’ll leave FLACSO’s and Manuela Rouger’s social media in the show notes.

In other news, more than twenty members of the British Parliament have called for sanctions on Vucic due to his visit to Russia two weeks ago. The MPs accused him of working with the Russian government to destabilize the Balkan region, condemning him for blatantly ignoring all of the EU warnings regarding Serbia’s close ties with Russia. They noted that Serbia is the only EU candidate that has not imposed sanctions on Russia due to its aggression against Ukraine. The British MPs also called for the sanctioning of the Serbian government and Vucic’s associates.

While on the topic of Vucic’s trip to Russia, last week, Marta Kos, the European Commissioner for Enlargement, condemned Vucic’s visit to Moscow and noted that it will set Serbia back on its path to EU accession. She also said that the Serbian authorities failed to deliver on the promises about reforms they had made in December. Kos was referring to Serbia’s foreign policy: The country hasn’t implemented policies to align with the EU’s in order to progress on its path to accession. Kos noted that Serbia is not among the countries that could finish their EU accession talks in the next four years, officially excluding Serbia from membership projections until twenty twenty-nine.

Despite criticism from the EU, Serbian officials announced a new gas supply contract between Serbia and Russia. Even though it is not yet ready, as Gazprom, Russia’s state gas monopoly, is still working on it, Serbian officials said that the country will definitely accept it. The reason behind Serbia’s demand for Russian natural gas is the already established infrastructure and the more affordable prices under long-term contracts, which Serbia and Russia have engaged in the past.

On Wednesday the 14th, the Prosecutor’s office for organized crime announced the arrest of Goran Vasic, the acting director of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments. In a statement, the office shared that Vasic had forged a document last year that led to the removal of the General Staff building from the register of cultural monuments. After that, in November, the government adopted a decree to revoke the cultural monument status of the General Staff building, followed by a new contract with Donald Trump’s son-in-law to build a hotel on the General Staff building’s premises. Vasic admitted to his crimes while in police custody.

Researchers at the Center for Politics of Emancipation spoke about their report on the textile and automotive industries and how they treat their workers. They noted that these sectors usually overwork their employees by setting excessively high production quotas and making them work overtime, whilst they are grossly underpaid. One of the researchers said that both sectors see regular violations of labour rights.

They noted that Serbia’s textile employees earn around 65,000 dinars a month, which is around 620 dollars, including bonuses, overtime and night shifts. As for the automotive industry, the average net salary is around 70,000 dinars, around 670 dollars. Meanwhile, the minimum wage in Serbia is around 50,000 dinars, around 480 dollars, a month.

Still on the economic front, last week the Serbian central bank reported that in the first three months of twenty twenty-five Serbia attracted around 620 million dollars in net foreign direct investments, or FDI. Compared to the same period in twenty twenty-four, this marks a drop of more than fifty percent. President Vucic blamed the student-led mass protests in Serbia for this economic decline, noting that the political instability was unattractive to investors.

However, the spring economic forecast of the European Commission, or EC, published on Monday the 19th, projects a GDP growth of around three percent in twenty twenty-five, and around four percent in twenty twenty-six. As of twenty twenty-four, Serbia’s GDP stands at around nine trillion dinars, which is around eight billion dollars. The EC underlined that the GDP growth would likely come from domestic demand. However, it also said that the economic sentiment from January to April deteriorated due to the political situation in the country and student-led protests.

Closing this edition with cultural news, from the 21st to the 27th of May, Belgrade will be hosting the international Beldocs documentary film festival, featuring a rich repertoire of films from around the world, and lots of other activities.

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

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

Did you know that we do lots of other updates? We’ve got country updates and non-county updates, including the Arctic Update, the Multilateral Update, and the Ocean Update.

Check the full list with the link in the show notes!

Do daljnjeg, zbogom!