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Tag: Serbia

The Balkans in the multipolar moment

Wider shifts in the global order are challenging the foreign policy trajectories of Balkan states. While expectations have existed of a clear integration into western structures, the current reality reveals a variety of relationships with powers outside the region. Credible action by the West is necessary if a feasible model of development is to persist among local states.

March 3, 2026 - Blerim Vela

Serbia: “The government’s “expecting violence” rhetoric is a clear warning sign… that they’re preparing to create it.”

An interview with Jovana Spremo, Advocacy Director at the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM). Interviewer: The Human Rights House Foundation.

November 21, 2025 - Jovana Spremo The Human Rights House Foundation

Sanctions against Serbia’s Petroleum Industry pose a challenge for Vučić

Aleksandar Vučić has for many years been trying to balance between East and West, maintaining close ties with Russia, cultivating good relations with the United States, and simultaneously striving for EU membership. However, such a balance is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain – and the Serbia’s Petroleum Industry case is a vivid confirmation of this.

November 20, 2025 - Ivan Zhyhal

Strengthening the civil society’s resilience in Serbia

Despite growing authoritarianism and a shrinking civic space in Serbia, civil society has demonstrated remarkable resilience through grassroots environmental movements, student protests, and citizens’ assemblies. These forms of activism have expanded locally and transnationally, mobilizing citizens, especially the youth, to demand accountability and democratic reforms.

September 27, 2025 - Sofija Popović

Rediscovering democracy in Serbia

Even if not acting recognizably political or within the frame of party politics in Serbia, the student movement is slowly and substantially changing the political culture. Students have helped people regain courage and optimism. Although they missed their lectures, they lectured the nation in democracy, solidarity and social responsibility.

Spring has arrived early in Serbia this year, but justice for the victims of the canopy collapse at the train station in Novi Sad still seems far away. The tragic event that took the lives of 16 people and severely injured one on November 1st, 2024 stunned the nation and soon came to symbolize the corruption of the country’s public officials. The initial grief was followed by reflective dismay. How can this seemingly ultramodern building, reconstructed (and dubiously overfunded) to great fanfare just a year ago, be so rotten? Can we trust our politicians about anything?

May 5, 2025 - Andrej Ševo

Jetztzeit is now: democratic erosion from above, civic resistance from below

Ongoing protests across the Balkans and neighbouring countries are starting to look like a wider phenomenon. These demonstrations appear emblematic of a shared response to issues of democratic backsliding seen across the region.

April 24, 2025 - Marina Milić

From civic-minded, multinational Vojvodina to patriotic, nationalist northern Serbia

Vojvodina and its capital Novi Sad had been a multicultural region that once enjoyed significant autonomy from Belgrade. Sadly, it became the consolation prize that Serbian nationalists received in exchange for an independent Kosovo. Anything that deviates from the narrow framework of Serbian nationalism is now considered separatism in Vojvodina.

The Serbian region of Vojvodina – once a civic, multicultural and economic phenomenon – is rapidly being destroyed politically. In February of last year, the region remembered 50 years since the adoption of the Constitution of the Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in the former Yugoslavia. At that time, Vojvodina had its own judicial, legislative and executive authorities. It had its own financial revenues. Like Kosovo, Vojvodina had almost all the elements of a republic, but it was still a part of Serbia. During the 1980s, Vojvodina was one of the most developed parts of socialist Yugoslavia in terms of GDP, after Slovenia and Croatia. 

February 28, 2025 - Boris Varga

On narratives and fairytales: Serbia’s authoritarian leader’s playbook

The student protests that have shaken Serbian society in the wake of the Novi Sad disaster have so far led to only symbolic government changes. But the system itself remains intact and will not face a true reckoning without a direct confrontation with the political machinery built by President Vučić and his inner circle—a system sustained as much by repression as by a carefully crafted disinformation playbook.

February 13, 2025 - Leon Hartwell

Serbian students in the fight against the authoritarian regime

Serbia is currently experiencing a wave of protests following the death of 15 people in Novi Sad. The collapse of a canopy at the city’s railway station has led students to take to the streets across the country to fight for a better future.

January 29, 2025 - Tatjana Đorđević

Serbia’s shrinking civic space needs international attention

In recent months, Serbia has witnessed an alarming crackdown on its civic space. This has unfolded through a wave of arrests, smear campaigns, and repressive tactics aimed at silencing dissent and undermining democratic principles. These actions, exacerbated by growing Russian and Chinese influence, reveal a systematic effort of Serbia’s authorities to suppress civil society and stifle public dissent.

January 13, 2025 - Alma Mustajbašić Dragoslava Barzut

“Serbs suffer from some kind of eternal victim syndrome”

Interview with Ivan Milenković, Serbian philosopher and literary scholar. Interviewers: Iwona Reichardt and Nikodem Szczygłowski.

December 22, 2024 - Ivan Milenković Iwona Reichardt Nikodem Szczygłowski

Serbia: the construction accident that triggered nationwide protests

The construction disaster at the railway station in Novi Sad is much more than a tragic accident. It is a symbol of the incompetence and corruption of the current regime in Serbia. This undermines the main elements of government propaganda, which state that infrastructure investment will bring prosperity to the society.

December 21, 2024 - Marta Szpala

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