The European Parliament issued a joint motion on Tuesday addressing Belgrade’s crackdown on protests following the Novi Sad tragedy close to a year ago while reiterating the EU’s conditions for Serbia’s membership bid.
On Nov. 1, 2024, a concrete canopy at Novi Sad’s main railway station in Serbia collapsed and killed 16 people, triggering mass protests and subsequent crackdowns in the country that have lingered for months.
In its statement, the European Parliament has raised criticisms over multiple aspects of Belgrade’s response and noted the presence of what it called “isolated cases” of “pro-Russian and chauvinistic rhetoric” being displayed.
It also criticized Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić’s casting of the protests as a color revolution per Kremlin narratives.
“President Vučić, who according to the Serbian Constitution has no formal authority over policing, has framed the protests as ‘color revolutions’ organized and financed by foreign secret services of Western states, and has transmitted this via pro-government media; whereas Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has supported this narrative and accused the EU of carrying out ‘subversive activities’ to fuel the protests,” the statement says.
It then highlights a list of requirements made to Belgrade during European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s visit to Serbia on Oct. 15 – one of which includes the reiteration of Serbia’s membership requirements.
“Reiterates that EU accession negotiations with Serbia should only advance on the basis of measurable and sustainable progress in the fundamentals cluster, particularly on the rule of law, the fight against corruption and organized crime, judicial independence, media freedom, public administration reform, full alignment with the EU’s common foreign and security policy (CFSP), and sanctions against Russia,” the document states.
Serbia applied to join the EU in 2009 and has been granted candidate status since 2012. However, slow progress in democratic and human rights reforms, among others, has stalled Belgrade’s membership bid.
The issue over Kosovo, a de facto independent state inside Serbia backed by most Western nations, also remains an issue.
Diplomatically, Serbia has also attempted to cast itself as a neutral party to Russia’s war in Ukraine by maintaining ties with both Kyiv and Moscow, though its continued ties with Moscow have ostensibly irked the EU.
In December 2024, Vucic talked to President Volodymyr Zelensky, with the two hailing their “common path to the EU.”
However, Vučić was also among the few heads of state visiting Moscow’s World War II Victory Day parade in May, with historical ties between Russia and Serbia having been a prevalent narrative in both countries’ societies.
In October, the US also imposed sanctions on Serbia’s Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS), an oil firm majority-owned by Russian energy giants Gazprom and Gazprom Neft, with bipartisan warning from the US Senate urging Vučić to choose between Europe and Russia moving forward.
