Serbia goes against the current
by Jean-Arnault Dérens , March 4
While so many countries around the world are turning to populist far-right movements, demands for moral integrity, social justice, and direct democracy are being heard in this Balkan country, which has been ablaze since the fall with a revolt that continues to spread.
Since November, Serbia has been experiencing a wave of revolt of unprecedented scale. Since the tragic accident at the Novi Sad train station, whose canopy collapsed on November 1, killing fifteen people, tens of thousands of Serbs have gathered in silence every day at 11:52 a.m., the time of the tragedy, in tribute to the victims. Following this tragedy, attributed to the regime's corruption, more than 60 universities and colleges have been occupied, lawyers and secondary school teachers are on strike, and farmers are supporting the movement, which is expected to spread to other social categories.
Confounding the government's expectations, there are no signs of the movement slowing down. The mobilization, denouncing the country's systemic corruption, is pushing radical democratic demands, seeming to counter the far-right shift across Europe and the world. Indeed, the old nationalist refrains have abruptly disappeared from public debate. In recent years, recurring images of vociferous marches of far-right hooligans attacking Pride marches or affirming their unwavering support for Vladimir Putin's Russia seemed to indicate that the country had still not managed to free itself from its ghosts. In the last parliamentary elections, several small far-right groups managed to cross the electoral threshold, securing a few seats. These groups, more or less folkloric, benefited from good exposure in media close to the regime. Indeed, the regime is eager to have an opposition of this type.
The recipe dates back to the 1990s: to be accepted at least as a last resort by the West, the best thing for the Serbian regime would be to "manufacture" itself a repulsive opposition. This is how Slobodan Milošević used Vojislav Šešelj's Serbian Radical Party ( SRS ) as a scarecrow, and the current president, Aleksandar Vučić, has learned his lesson well. It is true that he was well-informed: while an SRS activist , he was Minister of Information in the "national unity" government formed during the Kosovo war in 1998.
In the 2000s, after the fall of Milošević, the SRS established itself as the main opposition force, but the party was blocked by a "glass ceiling" of around 30 to 35% of the vote. It was then that Aleksandar Vučić provoked a split in 2008, creating his Serbian Progressive Party ( SNS ). The model claimed was that of Gianfranco Fini's National Alleanza, which emerged from the old fascist Italian Social Movement ( MSI ). The aim was to initiate a resolute aggiornamento of the nationalist formation by creating a large conservative party that was theoretically "pro-European" and therefore acceptable to the country's international partners.
Comprador capitalism
The recipe worked. Aleksandar Vučić became Deputy Prime Minister in 2012, Prime Minister two years later, and Head of State in 2017. His SNS has a comfortable absolute majority in the National Assembly and controls all of the country's municipalities, without exception since the 2023 elections. The party's grip is hegemonic over political life and institutions, but also over the justice system, the media, and even culture: theater and museum directors are replaced by bureaucrats at their beck and call, while the country plummets year after year in the Reporters Without Borders world press freedom index. As for the formally open calls for tender, they are also caught in the political-economic nets of a generalized system of "pyramidal" corruption: everything goes back to the person of the head of state and the party who, having succeeded in chloroforming all the institutional safeguards, has far more power than Milošević ever had.
The economic "model" of a regime boasting blazing growth rates is actually based on printing money and selling off national wealth. Not a week goes by without Aleksandar Vučić opening a new factory—these are generally labor-intensive industries, attracted to Serbia by very low wages and enormous state subsidies. This social and fiscal dumping is unsustainable, as these companies generally only stay as long as they can profit as much as possible, before relocating to neighboring countries that offer similar conditions, such as Albania. The paradox that sums up this Potemkin economy is that Serbia is constantly creating jobs while its population continues to shrink, inexorably drawn to the exodus.
The regime's other recipe is to sell off the country's natural resources, whether it be copper from the east of the country, ceded to the Chinese [ 1 ] , or lithium from eastern Serbia, promised to the Australian-Canadian giant Rio Tinto [ 2 ] . In short, between the provision, on site or for export, of an underpaid workforce and the sale of natural resources, Serbia is becoming a third-world country, increasingly placing its destiny in a situation of underdeveloped capitalist periphery. As for the Serbian elites, they are playing the classic role that Marxists attribute to a comprador bourgeoisie, responsible for serving as a relay for the dominant powers in dominated countries, a function which guarantees its status, its privileges and its fortune.
The country's only other source of cash comes from the sale of small arms, of which Serbia is a major producer: Serbian Kalashnikovs have been found in Yemen, Libya, and in all camps in Syria and Ukraine. Finally, the regime maintains structural links with organized crime, starting with global cocaine networks, which hide behind the "folkloric" screen of hooligan and football fan networks. These criminal networks reign supreme in the northern Serbian regions of Kosovo, where they act as substitutes for Serbian public institutions.
Stabilocracy
No one is better informed about all these turpitudes than Western diplomats and European officials, who nevertheless continue to provide resolute and determined support to the regime of Aleksandar Vučić. Why?
The first reason is based on the eternal argument of "for lack of anything better." The divided opposition would be incapable of representing an alternative, or worse, this opposition, riddled with nationalism and fascinated by Moscow, could turn out to be worse than the current regime.
In short, it would be better to be content with what we have than to plunge into the unknown, provided that we can convince Aleksandar Vučić to respect the very uncertain, or even fluctuating, "red lines." This is where the strategy of using far-right groups as "bogeymen" proves very effective in justifying this "for lack of anything better" embodied by the Belgrade regime.
There's more. Serbia has had the status of a candidate country for European integration since 2012, opened its accession negotiations in 2013, and has not managed to close a single chapter since... In reality, the entire enlargement process has long since entered a grey area where pretense reigns supreme. We must act as if this process were still relevant, as if Serbia were a serious candidate, but no one foresees the slightest enlargement in the Balkans on the foreseeable horizon, not even the Von der Leyen Commission II or the first... It is therefore particularly useful to have in power in the candidate countries leaders like Aleksandar Vučić, formally "pro-European", but not at all interested in a real enlargement which would call into question the bases of his power and who can even, through his excesses, occasionally justify the blocking of the process...
In short, it is a perverse synergy which has developed between Belgrade and Brussels around an integration which must always be talked about in order to never do it.
At the same time, leaders like Aleksandar Vučić – or his colleague, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama – guarantee the region's "stability", a "stability" defined at the very least as the simple absence of open conflict. This is the magic recipe of the Balkan "stabilocracies" analyzed by the political scientist Florian Bieber [ 3 ] , these formally pro-European but increasingly autocratic regimes, which above all guarantee the region's "stability" and which can only be maintained with the active support of the Union, which therefore has every interest in seeing these very undemocratic leaders remain in power.
The Ukrainian paradox
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 could have called this model into question, but it did not. Since 2014, the war in Ukraine has placed Serbia in a delicate position. Indeed, Belgrade counts on Moscow's support to oppose any recognition of Kosovo at the United Nations Security Council, but Serbia cannot endorse the annexation of Crimea and Donbass, even though it constantly refers to international law regarding Kosovo. Therefore, at the end of February 2022, it voted without hesitation for the UN General Assembly resolutions condemning the Russian invasion and supporting Ukraine's territorial integrity, while refusing to impose sanctions against Moscow.
Serbia is even the only candidate country for European integration not to sanction Russia, refusing to align itself with the diplomacy of the 27. Such a sidestep could have been nothing more than a fleeting last stand, exposing Serbia to strong European reactions. This was not the case. Three years later, nothing has changed, and no one is calling on Belgrade to impose sanctions anymore. Already known as a good chess player, President Aleksandar Vučić has proven to be an even better judoka, transforming his weaknesses into strengths. Indeed,
Europeans do not dare to raise their voices against Belgrade, for fear that it will "drift" even further toward Moscow. We have therefore seen, over the last three years, the Union systematically agree with Belgrade on the sensitive issue of Kosovo and even take unprecedented sanctions against the small country, even though Serbian demonstrators injured 60 NATO soldiers during a demonstration on May 29, 2023, and a heavily armed Serbian commando, officially financed by a "businessman" from Mitrovica very close to the Belgrade regime, killed three police officers in northern Kosovo on September 24...
This is pathetically an attempt to convince Serbia that it would have more to gain from counting on Western support than on that of Moscow.
Similarly, at the end of August 2024, Emmanuel Macron went to Belgrade to sign the contract for the sale of twelve Rafale aircraft [ 4 ] , whose strategic utility is more than uncertain,
but which would have had the main mission of "anchoring Serbia in the Western camp", according to the language provided by the Élysée. Since then, the French president has become the best propagandist for his Serbian friend in European circles -
a buyer of Rafales could not be a bad man, and the "house of France" never criticizes a customer.
Aleksandar Vučić is not only highlighting extremist groups in an attempt to make Westerners believe that he must "resist" a largely pro-Russian public opinion, he is also satisfied with the ambiguous attitude of the Serbian Orthodox Church. However, the latter has never been so tightly controlled and used by the political power as today [ 5 ] . At the same time, the media controlled by the regime – tabloids and television stations like Pink TV or Happy TV – are completely taking up the Russian narrative of the war in Ukraine. It is therefore false to claim that Aleksandar Vučić cannot sanction Russia because of the reluctance of Serbian public opinion; it would be more accurate to observe that this same Vučić is shaping a pro-Russian public opinion in order to justify his own hesitations with his Western partners.
The "Russian" argument is valid, moreover, in all contexts. Thus, effective lobbying work explains that peasant and citizen resistance to Rio Tinto's lithium exploitation projects in western Serbia is being "manipulated" by Moscow. No proof has ever been produced to support this thesis, but it is circulating, pushed by Rio Tinto's lobbyists themselves and complacently taken up to the highest levels of the European Union [ 6 ] .
Good friends: Orbán, Janša and Meloni
In truth, Aleksandar Vučić has no shortage of friends. Among them, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán plays a bit of a "godfather" role. The Serbian president has long been a regular at the Budapest Demographic Summits, which bring together the cream of the European far right in the Hungarian capital every late summer around the mobilizing theme of "defending the family." It was there that he met Marine Le Pen, Éric Zemmour, Marion Maréchal, Giorgia Meloni, and former Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša.
Giorgia Meloni also occupies a unique position. Aleksandar Vučić's ideological "realignment" in 2008 was modeled on that of Gianfranco Fini and his Alleanza Nazionale, in which the young Meloni was active. Moreover, the former Yugoslavia and the Balkans represent Italy's immediate neighborhood—across the Adriatic Sea border and the highly contested "eastern border," from Friuli to Trieste. The Italian far right is traditionally pro-Serb out of anti-Croatianism, believing that Istria and Dalmatia, now Croatian, are actually Italian territory. On February 10, 2019, in Trieste, Antonio Tajani, then President (Forza Italy - EPP ) of the European Parliament, and current Foreign Minister of Giorgia Meloni, caused a scandal by exclaiming in the middle of a ceremony in memory of the victims of this eastern border: "Long live Italian Istria and Dalmatia!" The Serbian radical groups maintain close relations with their Italian counterparts, such as the Blocco Studentesco or Casa Pound, whose representatives have often had the opportunity to fraternize with those of the Russian Imperial Legion in the premises of the famous Klub 451 in Belgrade [ 7 ] ... Of course, neither Giorgia Meloni nor Aleksandar Vučić frequent such places, but they know well how youth must be spent, arm outstretched and bottle of beer held in the other hand.
Janez Janša was another important regional partner. While still in power, the since-defeated Slovenian Prime Minister had promoted the dissemination of a "non-paper" [ 8 ] , an unofficial report with mainly provocative or trial balloon value, which proposed accelerating the European integration of Serbia and Montenegro, but postponing that of Kosovo, which was called to reunite with Albania, and dividing Bosnia-Herzegovina between Croatia and Serbia, leaving a central enclave for Muslim Bosnians called upon to "choose" whether they preferred European integration or attachment to Turkey. This document proposed, on the one hand, to endorse the principle of a redefinition of the borders of the Balkans on an ethno-confessional basis and, on the other hand, to consider that integration was no longer guaranteed except for countries with a predominantly Christian tradition. This document is said to have received the blessing of Budapest before being "leaked". Another regular at the Budapest Summits, Milorad Dodik, President of the Republika Srpska and strongman of this "Serbian entity" of Bosnia-Herzegovina, is also a loyal friend of the Hungarian Prime Minister.
We sometimes have the levity to present Viktor Orbán as "anti-European." He himself considers himself very "European," but his vision of Europe is based on an ethno-confessional definition and not on the liberal values theoretically promoted by the Union. And the Hungarian Prime Minister is a much more resolute supporter of enlargement than the leaders in Berlin or Paris, except that this enlargement must favor brotherly and friendly countries, such as Serbia or the Republika Srpska of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Viktor Orbán is surely also making a very pragmatic calculation: if Serbia joined the Union, it would send between fifteen and twenty MEPs to the European Parliament. Given the current balance of power, this delegation would include more friends of Viktor Orbán than MEPs willing to sit in the Green group or the European United Left!
Good friends: Netanyahu and Trump
These "friendship" networks would be incomplete without mentioning Benjamin Netanyahu and a few other figures of the Israeli far right, such as Avigdor Lieberman, who is closely linked to Milorad Dodik. Socialist Yugoslavia had a strong tradition of commitment to Palestine, which still has ambassadors in several successor countries, notably Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia, but hostility to "Muslims" has brought Serbian nationalists closer to Israeli hawks. At the same time, Israeli networks have invested in strategic sectors in the Balkans, such as political communication. Aleksandar Vučić thus has Israeli advisors, while Viktor Orbán presents himself as Benjamin Netanyahu's best ally in the EU, offering to invite him to Budapest despite the arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. For the Israeli Prime Minister, who made a major tour of the Balkans in 2018, it may prove useful to cultivate a network of support among Eastern European countries that are members of the Union or candidates, in order to consolidate a balance of power with Brussels.
Finally, this galaxy of good friends naturally includes President Trump and his "special missions envoy," Richard Grenell, who, during Trump's first term, was special envoy for the Balkans and then ambassador to Germany. During his time away from power, Richard Grenell cultivated his Balkan networks, spending vacations in Albania with Prime Minister Edi Rama or being seen in the chic cafes of Belgrade with Serbian Finance Minister Siniša Mali. He served as an intermediary for Jared Kuschner, the president's son-in-law, who wants to build two luxury resorts, one on the site of the former Yugoslav general staff, bombed in 1999, in the heart of Belgrade, the other on the deserted island of Sazan, in Albania... In 2016 already, the Serbian far right had shown its support for candidate Trump, mobilizing the diaspora which happens to carry significant weight in some crucial states of the American Rust Belt.
During his first term, Donald Trump had advocated for a "deal" between Kosovo and Serbia based on an exchange of territories. Aleksandar Vučić was in favor, as was Hashim Thaçi, then president of Kosovo; the latter's indictment for war crimes by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in November 2020 scuppered this project, but it may well come back with a vengeance: while the European Union and the entire "international community" have invested enormous efforts and no less considerable sums of money to promote the multi-ethnicity of states with supposedly intangible borders - Kosovo being a particular case that accommodates this general rule - the territories would now be Monopoly cards that can be resold or traded... A fierce opponent of an agreement of this type, the outgoing Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, is the object of the open hostility of Richard Grenell, who wrote on the X network, a few days before the legislative elections of February 9, that it "could not be a partner of the United States"...
Relations between Belgrade and Budapest also involve strategic economic interests. The Novi Sad train station, whose canopy collapsed on November 1, was renovated by a Chinese company and is located on the future high-speed line connecting the two capitals, which is also being built by a Chinese company. Having good relations with Giorgia Meloni or Donald Trump doesn't preclude having good relations with Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin. In short, these two "nice guys," Orbán and Vučić, have friends halfway around the world.
An “anti-political” revolt
Since the tragedy in Novi Sad, Aleksandar Vučić's regime has faced a protest of exceptional magnitude, strength, and duration. Every day at 11:52 a.m., across the country, thousands of Serbs observe fifteen minutes of silence in honor of the fifteen victims. Nearly 80 universities were still occupied in February, while the movement, led by student plenums, spread to all social classes. Students have organized numerous marches or relay races connecting the country's major cities via villages or very small towns where they are welcomed as liberators: by demonstrating their physical presence, even that of bodies tired from days of walking, it is a matter of breaking the media blackout, but also of imposing a tangible reality in the face of virtual and alternative stories on social media. The students also demonstrate astonishing dexterity in playing with symbols that are contradictory and politically opposed. Thus, on February 15, a huge rally took place in Kragujevac, the capital of Šumadija, the cradle of traditional Serbian nationalism, conservative, Orthodox and monarchist, on Sretenje Day, the national holiday that commemorates the first anti-Ottoman uprising of 1804, but also the country's first Constitution, in 1835. Now, to prepare for this rally, the students organized several relay races across the country, repeating the ritual of the štafeta, the relay race organized every May 25 in socialist Yugoslavia for "Youth Day" and the birthday of Marshal Tito.
Some experts discuss whether certain student plenums are "more left-wing" (the one in Novi Sad) or "more right-wing" (the one at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade), but in reality, access to the plenums is strictly forbidden to non-students, particularly journalists. No decision or public statement is made without being validated by the plenums, while the movement categorically refuses to highlight even the slightest personalities. The radical demand for horizontality and direct democracy of the plenums completely destabilizes the regime, which does not know who to attack. The movement also refuses to personalize its adversary. The name Aleksandar Vučić himself is never mentioned; the plenums prefer to speak of "the person who holds the presidential office." There could be no more effective strategy against a leader who has never ceased to present himself as a hero and martyr ready to give his life for Serbia, personalizing every issue... The students' demands are astonishingly and radically simple: respect for the laws and the Constitution. Yet, this is precisely what the Vučić regime cannot do. All the regime's offers of "dialogue" fall flat: why should the students "discuss" respect for the laws and the Constitution with the head of state?
The European Union is no longer the issue
At the time of writing, it is impossible to predict the future of the movement, and its possible success. However, it is clear that the regime's main bet, which was on its running out of steam, has not yet been met. On the contrary, it continues to expand to new social categories.
The students, moreover, do not speak of the regime" of Aleksandar Vučić, but of a "system" that must be rebuilt. This "system" is the one that, for three decades of "transition", has been too comfortable with corruption and small arrangements with the laws. This "system" has also been supported by the current opposition parties and by the European Union, betting that a facade of pluralism confiscated by narrow oligarchies could replace "liberal democracy" and "a functioning market economy". As Slavoj Žižek writes, the current revolt is "anti-political", because it calls into question all the political categories of the post-socialist transition [ 9 ] . The immense demand for justice shatters the pretenses of political categories, where one can move from the "left " to the "extreme right" overnight . The Serbian movement is "anti-political" in the same sense as the 1989 revolutions, which rejected the rules of the game established by the regimes of "real socialism."
The European Union remains surprisingly silent in the face of the movement shaking Serbia, which naturally outrages Serbian democrats and civil society, who have written a vibrant open letter to the Union's leaders. The Union is not silent only because several of its leaders continue to actively and openly support Aleksandar Vučić—such as French President Macron, who spoke by telephone with his Serbian counterpart on February 8. It is not silent only because it is ignorant of what the future holds and fears a "geopolitical shift" in Serbia. It is, in fact, well aware that the demand for systemic change brought by the Serbian protests presupposes a fundamental reset of its functioning, its objectives, and its method of enlargement. The students expect nothing from the European Union; they are convinced that they are in the process of reinventing everything.
Alors que tant de pays du monde se tournent vers des extrêmes droites populistes, ce sont des exigences d'intégrité morale, de justice sociale et de démocratie directe qui se font entendre dans ce pays des Balkans, embrasé depuis l'automne par une révolte qui n'en finit pas de s'étendre. La...
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