Why are Serbian students protesting? What are the social and political causes of ongoing protests? What is the state of democracy in Serbia? Does the European Union focus on business alternatively of value? And should we fear geopolitical tensions in the Balkans? Leszek Jażdżewski (Foundation Liberte!) talks to Ivan Vejvoda, a permanent associate of the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), head of the Europe’s Futures program and host of the Vienna Coffee home Conversations. He was besides elder Vice-President of Programs at the German Marshall Fund (GMF) in the United States, Executive manager of the GMF Balkan Trust for Democracy, and besides acted in the Serbian government as elder advisor for abroad policy and European integration during the word of Prime Ministers Zoran Djindjić and Zoran Zivkovic. He previously served as Executive manager of the Belgrade Open Society Fund from 1998 to 2002. He was a key figure in the democratic opposition movement in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and is the author of many publications on democratic change, totalitarianism and post-war reconstruction in the Balkans.
Leszek Jażdżewski (LJ): What are the causes of the immense social uproar that is presently taking place in Serbia?
Ivan Vejvoda (IV): In a telegraphic summary, people realized that surviving in a enslaved country with a advanced level of systemic corruption resulted in the death of 16 innocent people. The current government has held power since 2012. It's been their thirteenth year in power. We, political scientists, specify regimes of this kind by different terms – electoral authority or electoral autocracy. This means that elections are being held in our country, but there are serious cases of state appropriation, as well as rejection of power-sharing and control and balance mechanisms.
The institutions that endure the most are the justice system, and especially the prosecution. What happened in this area was not unexpected, but not little surprising. Why? due to the fact that it was the students who went out on the streets in the major Serbian cities and conducted actions at universities to protest the state's appropriation. We all thought that the X-generation – or the alleged TikTok generation – was apolitical, apathetic and just waiting to get a diploma, leave our country and go elsewhere. And it happened precisely the other way.
They were the ones who took the hard stand, saying: “This is our country! We want to live here and we want to make this country better. And we realize that we gotta do this by our own means." This is simply a immense surprise due to the fact that many people thought that young people would want to leave. Given the situation in Europe and in the world, it is now more hard to find a occupation abroad than 10 years ago. We must remember that these young people, who are now 20 years old, were 10 years old erstwhile this government came to power. Therefore, they know nothing about wars, about the 1990s, about the Hague Court. And yet they made it clear, "We want to free the institutions."
One of the amazing phenomena associated with this movement is simply a completely fresh way of acting. These are not average regular protests of people marching on the streets we've been dealing with for the past 12 years. This wave of protests has a very profound basis. It's completely bottom-up and authentic. And the best news is that it shows that this country, Serbia, has a bright future, given this generation.
Students awakened Serbian society, and people overcame the fear of expressing opposition to what was happening. What's more, they're storming through Serbia. They run through villages that are half empty due to demographic decline. In this way they managed to make the right atmosphere and all the movement that the government does not truly know how to deal with.
The government is utilizing protests to confirm that this is simply a conspiracy created outside our country, a kind of colorful revolution; that sometimes the West, and sometimes Russia, incites to the suppression of the regime. In the meantime, what the students request is very simple: their main request is to supply all papers related to the Chinese refurbishment of the fresh Sad railway station before the fatal disaster last November, so that we can find out who is liable for it. Secondly, they want to uncover corrupt ties.
LJ: What is the political dimension of ongoing protests? To what degree are Serbian political parties part of them? What is the current state of politics in Serbia and its relation with protests?
IV: 3 crucial things to say at first. Firstly, as regards the subject of liberalism, democracy, rights and the regulation of law, these protests have a very deep and crucial democratic dimension. Students are organized in the plenary, which makes the protest horizontal – they hold regular discussions that are documented, with a set agenda, protocols from all these meetings are kept, and all this has been going on for 4 months. For 4 months, students have constantly demanded that their key demands be met, which is inactive not the case – and that is why they are persistent in their efforts.
Secondly, protests are completely peaceful. Protesters do not want them to make it hard in any way to scope a solution – they want us to prosecute free and fair elections. In this way, it is simply a kind of cleansing of society due to the fact that they do not want to be connected to anyone. They don't want aid from abroad or from opposition parties. Protests enjoy large public support due to the fact that it is besides a civic movement. Citizens took to the streets in about 200 Serbian cities – from the largest (as our capital, Belgrade) to the smallest villages.
It should not be added that this phenomenon is not limited to the capital but to the general public. Students are thus trying to lead to a ‘moment of purification’ to open a fresh card in our past and change the system. What irritated president Aleksandar Vučić the most is that from the very beginning students said: “This is not about you, but about our regulation of law and the request to reconstruct independent institutions with control and balance mechanisms". 1 example of student creativity is that they appeared in front of the lawyer General's office or the Constitutional Court and brought legal textbooks, calling on officials to reread the content of their examinations, in terms of what it means to observe the Constitution and to operate an independent judiciary.
In this context, the fundamental question is how all this translates into politics. We have an opposition that was weak, but the latest public opinion polls show that support for the President's coalition in parliament and for the president himself has fallen seriously, and for the opposition it will increase if it is to unite in the next elections. Now, as far as elections are concerned, erstwhile the Prime Minister resigned (more than 2 months ago), the president proposed to hold elections.
However, no 1 in their right head would go to elections if they were now carried out, due to deficiency of freedom of choice and unfair conditions – in the Serbian media, electoral lists (which must be changed) and electoral procedures (which have been degraded within 12 years of the regime). That is why I believe that at the end of April we will have a fresh government that will then prepare and work on reforms. Moreover, president Vučić had late met in Brussels with the president of the European Council, António Costa, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and promised that all this would be done. The earliest elections could then take place in October, although it is more likely that they will be held in December.
Of course, the question remains whether the government will meet the conditions of students – it will uncover all the papers and put those liable in jail. 15 people have already been charged – any are in prison, others are under home arrest. However, in the eyes of our citizens, the prosecution acts a small besides slowly, to put it mildly. However, I do not think that the student protest itself will weaken until any serious results have been achieved in the prosecution proceedings.
As far as the political dimension of all this is concerned, the opposition, as frequently happens, is divided, and is now slow uniting, demanding the creation of an expert government called "social trust". The president rejected the opposition as specified a government. However, given the ever-declared intention of the Serbian government to join the European Union, the President's visit to Brussels was very crucial as he continued his rhetorical goal of joining the European Union, showing that there is no another alternate to Serbia.
Our country depends on the European Union, regardless of all Chinese investments we have in the country. Politically and historically, we are part of Europe. And the President, who is presently in a precarious situation, given the decline of his quotations, understands that he cannot go in any another direction than to effort to meet the conditions set by Europe. We'll see how it goes in the coming weeks.
LJ: Why have these papers not been disclosed? Is there so much to hide that sharing the information they contain would be more dangerous than protesting on the streets?
IV: The simple answer is yes, that is the fear. About 2 months ago, any authors of press texts had already claimed that exposing all papers would be tantamount to political suicide. On the another hand, there is large pressure. That's why something's gonna gotta happen. any people will gotta go to jail. 2 erstwhile ministers have already been charged, presently under home arrest.
It should be noted that the reconstruction of the Nowy Sad railway station is part of a large task to build a high-speed railway between Belgrade and the capital of Hungary, Budapest, with the main contractor being a Chinese company and a subcontractor Hungarian company. Then we have many subcontractors that come from Serbia, and many people fishy that they are linked to people in the government. Therefore, although any 3,000 pages of papers have already been published, experts and engineers say that any passages have not been published. Nevertheless, the force is enormous, so we will gotta go in this direction.
It should besides be noted that the Prime Minister who resigned was mayor, but that day, the then mayor of fresh Sadus resigned. There's a fresh mayor now. Therefore, there are many suspicions of corruption linked to the rebuilding of the railway station.
LJ: For many people, unusual silence on the part of the European Union was truly annoying and hard to understand. any MEPs protested against president Vučic's gathering with the Presidents of the European Council and the European Commission, not wanting to give him credit at this hard time erstwhile students truly support the values on which the EU is based. Meanwhile, the EU seems to choose business over value. What is your opinion on this?
IV: I gotta start with 1 of the many very witty student banners that says, ‘Europe, silence, we will talk later’. Many people ask the same question as you, but in different ways. Why are there no European flags in protest? This phenomenon relates to what I said earlier: students want this movement to be completely "clean", based solely on the energy of people. It's us people who gotta change. We'll talk about the remainder later.
Of course, I always say that if we had a referendum on Europe, most people would like to come to it by reason. The latest poll shows that there has never been much support for the European Union - now 77 or 78% of people admit that we have benefited from being part of Europe. Everyone has individual who lives in a European country, so there is no uncertainty that we request leadership to lead us in this direction.
What is crucial is that the planet has changed, and that message of this fact is not trivial at all. And these students realize that even leaving the country would not have been so easy if you had left 10 years ago, wanting to find a occupation and function in this world.
Another very crucial thing is that European leaders have very much supported this government and this president, and it is crucial to realize why. Serbia was firmly on the western side of the case, with large support for Ukrainian war effort shown by exports of artillery missiles worth respective billion euros purchased by 3rd countries. president Vučić has a very close relation with president Zelenski. He sent his wife to Kiev respective times for various meetings.
Secondly, there is simply a question of relations with France. Serbia is to buy French Rafale fighters. It is France that builds the metro in Belgrade (we are 1 of the fewer capitals that have not yet metre). It besides has a concession to Belgrade airport for the next 25 years.
Finally, the question of the lithium mine remains. I like to make half a joke, half a serious gag that Serbia is going to save the German automobile manufacture by extracting this lithium. The mine should not start operating until about 3 years from now as an underground mine, not an open mine. This is very crucial due to the fact that for respective reasons there were immense protests against this mine.
One of the reasons was typical: the government decided to do it on its own, without any support from people surviving there or experts from the academic community and the engineering field. abruptly it was announced that this would be the case. The survey of the site began inactive during the erstwhile government – the democratic government of Boris Tadić, in 2004 – due to the fact that specified investigation takes a long time to see if the deposits are sufficient. However, a peculiar difference among another lithium mines is that for the first time it will be a mine located in a populated, rich agricultural area. Therefore, given the environmental threat specified a mine will pose, it has truly brought people to the streets.
In this context, before the elections 3 years ago, the government pretended to halt this trial, but then returned to it. The company that runs this task is Rio Tinto, an global British-Australian company in which China has 11% stake. Serbia was promised a crucial amount of money due to the fact that a processing plant (and possibly an electrical battery factory) would be established. In August, a Memorandum of knowing was signed with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Maroš Šefčovič of the European Commission. Then there were protests that truly mobilized society. It is widely believed that this is simply a bad thought for an area that is very rich due to the fact that the mine would destruct any of the water resources under it.
We'll see how it goes. I personally thought the mine would emergence before the protests began. But now that the protests have begun (which happened on 22 November 2024), I find it hard to believe that this will succeed, given the overall atmosphere. But who knows? This is not yet a strategical European task and we will see whether it will be announced at Brussels level or not.
LJ: Recently, information about the strengthening of military ties between Serbia and Hungary in consequence to the Military Alliance Memorandum signed by Albania, Croatia and Kosovo has been published. erstwhile something like this happens in the Balkans, people are always afraid of another Balkan war that can turn into something unpleasant. How serious should this be? Or is it just a play of appearances?
IV: The saddest, dramatic and regrettable thing is that we experienced war in the 1990s. It has active the full region of the erstwhile Yugoslavia, as well as another countries in sanctions and networks of corruption links. I don't think there's any energy for that right now, and that's why it seems to be a substance of appearances.
Nevertheless, we must be very careful. erstwhile politicians usage fiery rhetoric, you never know where it can lead. However, I believe that this will stay so and we will be able to observe even more fiery rhetoric. It is so very crucial to emphasise and callback that we have 3 countries that are full members of NATO in the region (Albania, Montenegro and Northern Macedonia), while Croatia and Slovenia are besides members of the EU. Moreover, we are completely surrounded by EU and NATO members. There are 5,000 NATO soldiers stationed in Kosovo. There is an EU mission in Bosnia, which is the successor to the NATO mission called EU-4, which presently has about 1,000 troops.
President Vučić late met NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Brussels. Serbia cooperates very closely with NATO as part of the Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPA) programme and does more exercises with NATO troops than with anyone else. This is not information that people follow, nor does it appear on the news, so it is crucial to realize the broader framework in which all this is happening. And I repeat, the crucial support Serbia has given to Ukraine's defence against Russian aggression through the export of artillery shells is of large importance for how the West fulfills its obligations.
Let us now decision on to the attitude of Europe. erstwhile European leaders arrive – like Chancellor Scholz in April – and say to the President: “You are doing a large occupation reforming your country!”, without even a shadow of criticism, saying: "Well, possibly you could do a small more about judicial improvement or media freedom"It's working. And people just rotation their eyes erstwhile the question comes up: what about values? Where are the values here? This is to specified an degree that, after this visit, there has been quite a few independent press saying, "Europe trades lithium in exchange for our democracy." Is that what Europe is about?
So Franziska Brantner, the Parliamentary State Secretary in Germany, had to give about six interviews in the next period to say: “No, no, no, we will not trade your democracy for lithium. We will guarantee this and guarantee that Serbia fulfils its commitments to carry out democratic reform." Therefore, it is not that they are not aware of this issue, but, unfortunately, in these geopolitical times, any things take precedence over others. Therefore, Serbian students understood that they had to take care of this democratic reform.
LJ: is simply a better future for Serbia possible given fresh events and student protests?
IV: I definitely see a better future for my country. However, this will take time. Nothing happens overnight, as you well know from the example of your country and history. However, I would like to say (maybe somewhat courageously) that, just as we were a "problem" in the early 1990s, erstwhile everyone was returning to Europe and moving on to democracy after the fall of communism (while Yugoslavia was plunged into populism, identity policy and historical events), possibly now we are a trailer of good things that will come elsewhere thanks to this very strong, very profoundly rooted and very heavy engaged democratic student movement.
It is simply a kind of fresh year of 1848 or the Paris Commune, erstwhile people truly begin to realize that they request to mobilize if they want to guarantee a better society for themselves. And there's nothing easy about that. The political dimension is fundamental here. However, given the European environment in which we are located, there is area for democratic hope and democratic imagination that can bring the right results.
Learn more about the guest: www.iwm.at/fellow/ivan-vejvoda
Listen to the Vienna Coffee home Conversations episode where Ivan Vejvoda talks to Leszek Jażdżewski: www.iwm.at/europes-futures/pub...l-europe-and-the-us
This podcast was produced by the European Liberal Forum in collaboration with the Movieno Liberal Social and the Liberté Foundation!, with the financial support of the European Parliament. Neither the European Parliament nor the European Liberal Forum are liable for the content of the podcast nor for any way of utilizing it.
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Dr. Olga Łabendowicz translated from English
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