SERBIA: Student Demonstrations & more – 10th Dec 2024

Dobar dan from BA! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 10th of December twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

On Wednesday the 4th, students from the University of Nis joined the series of student protests that have been taking place all over Serbia, in the wake of the fatal railway station disaster in the northern city of Novi Sad, which we reported last month. Students of the city’s faculty of philosophy occupied the institution, carrying banners and calling for officials to be held accountable. The faculty dean also participated in the protest.

Wednesday’s protest is one of many that have been going on in the country, as several faculties from the universities of both Belgrade and Novi Sad have also been demonstrating for a week now. The students said that they organized the protests as a sign of solidarity with the victims and their families.

Recall that a month ago, a canopy from Novi Sad’s railway station collapsed and left fifteen people dead, even though it went through a renovation in July of this year.

Speaking of protests, the Board of Directors of the Serbian Bar Association, or AKS, announced on Wednesday the 4th that lawyers throughout Serbia will not work on Tuesday the 11th, in protest of the way the parliament enacted the Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Criminal Code. The parliament adopted the law in late November, despite the opposition MPs being absent (in protest). The AKS accused the government of interfering in the work of the judiciary, condemning the act of passing laws without a debate.

Aside from the Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Criminal Code, the parliament enacted more than fifty laws and agreements without holding a debate.

In other news, during their meeting on Wednesday the 4th, the EU member states failed to reach an agreement on opening cluster three - the next chapter of negotiations for Serbia’s accession into the Union. Eight countries voted against the opening of Cluster three, including Croatia and Bulgaria. The main reasons they cited for the vote were Serbia’s lack of alignment with the EU’s foreign policy, lack of sanctions against Russia, rule of law issues, and Serbia’s relations with Kosovo. Most EU member countries voted in favor of the Cluster’s opening. However, to open Cluster three, all EU member states need to vote in favor of it.

Before the non-conclusive meeting of the EU member countries, Serbia sent them an informal document known as a non-paper in which it outlined the intended steps it would take to promote the cluster’s opening. Still, the EU announced that the next debate on the topic would be very soon, possibly this week.

On Sunday the 8th, several farmers’ associations held a meeting, where they announced protests and road blockades for Friday the 13th. Farmers condemned many of the government’s decisions, including low subsidies, and passive status of farms, which negatively impacted the agriculture sector. They called for the dismissal of all ministers in the Ministry of Agriculture, who they believe are responsible for the lousy state of the industry.

During the meeting, farmers also voiced their support for the ongoing student protests, and called for the government to take accountability for the Novi Sad tragedy.

In some news about energy, on Friday the 6th, Aleksandar Vulin, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that Serbia is looking into extending its gas supply contract with Russia, which is due to expire in March twenty twenty-five. Vulin, who is openly pro-Russian, stated that Serbia has great relations with Russia, which puts it in a good position to ask for an extension of the agreement.

Serbia consumes roughly three billion cubic meters, or around a hundred billion cubic feet, of gas per year, and it relies on Russia’s affordable gas prices.

However, due to EU condemnation for its ties with Russia, Serbia is also looking into diversifying its energy supplies.

Onto the economy. Last week the US-based credit ranking agency Fitch Ratings published their twenty twenty-five projections for the Eastern European countries’ credit ratings. Bulgaria and Serbia were the only two Eastern European countries to receive positive projections for twenty twenty-five, while Hungary was the only one to receive a negative outlook. The rest of the countries received a neutral projection, due to the mix of weak public finances and high geopolitical risks.

When it came to Serbia, Fitch commended its debt reduction, investment growth prospects, and improvements in external financial indicators, such as foreign exchange reserves.

On Thursday the 5th, several financial institutions and banks gathered at the second annual Banking Summit, which took place at Belgrade’s Sava Center. Representatives and bank governors from Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina gathered at the summit to discuss trends in the Balkan banking sector, such as efforts towards better economic stability and sustainable practices.

Jorgovanka Tabakovic, the governor of the National Bank of Serbia, or NBS, spoke about the country’s economic state, which she said is improving. Tabakovic underlined that the country’s inflation in Serbia is within range, noting that the economic growth is returning to pre-pandemic levels.

On another note, last week, the government announced an initiative to make homeownership more accessible to young people. They said that the NBS would work with commercial banks to reduce the down payment for housing loans, which the state would also subsidize. Their plan is to lower the down payments to around four percent from the current twenty percent, while also capping the monthly installments at around 20,000 dinars, which is around 210 dollars.

Next up, on Tuesday the 3rd, news outlet Medical Express reported on newly found links between air and water pollution and multimorbidity, which is the presence of two or more long-term chronic conditions in the same person, in Serbia. Published in the Environmental Health journal, the study was a collaboration between the Healthy Lifespan Institute, the University of Belgrade, and public health and environmental agencies in Serbia.

Medical Express noted that the study results showed more people suffered from multimorbidity in areas with higher air and water pollution. Some of the chronic health issues the study recorded affected the heart, lungs, bones and muscles.

The study underlined the importance of environmental protection, calling on the state to put effort into reducing water and air pollution in the country.

Talking about the state’s engagement in environmental protection, for the first time the government has incorporated a budget for green projects within the budget law. Last week, the finance ministry published an annex to the state budget in which it plans to allocate around 120 billion dinars, which is around one billion dollars, to fund more than sixty green projects.

The aim is to ensure that projects that intend to protect the environment receive funding. All of them are mostly focused on railway renovations and constructions to promote trains as an ecological means of transport. Some of these include the railway project connecting Belgrade to Hungary's capital Budapest, as well as the reconstruction of the railway line, which connects the southern city of Nis with Dimitrovgrad, on the border with Bulgaria.

Let’s end this edition with some cultural news. Belgrade’s Yugoslav Film Archive will host the 16th annual Merlinka International LGBT Film Festival from the 12th to the 16th of December. This year’s slogan is Courage Enters Through the Eyes which aims to celebrate cinema as one of the tools to empower those who face prejudice, fight against oppression, and raise their voices for human rights.

The festival will feature ninety movies, including documentaries and short films. Aside from Belgrade, Novi Sad will host its own version of the festival from the 13th to the 16th of December in their Cultural Center.

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

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

We hope you are enjoying the Rorshok Serbia Update as much as we enjoy making it. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite platform to keep up with what's going on in Serbia.

Do daljnjeg, zbogom!