Powder Keg Serbia: If Protests Trigger a (New) Political Crisis in the Balkans

Novi Sad, February 2025. Almost four months have passed since the collapse of a shelter at the railway station of the second most populous city in northwestern Serbia, resulting in 14 deaths and dozens injured.¹ An event that triggered a series of almost uninterrupted protests throughout the country and in particular in the capital Belgrade, whose main roads remained completely blocked for twenty-four hours in recent weeks thanks to a coordinated action of thousands of demonstrators who took to the streets to express their dissent towards widespread corruption and general dissatisfaction with the situation in the former Yugoslav republic.²

Leading the protests are young people, very young people and especially university students, who - regardless of the relentless attempts to repress popular dissent by the Serbian police forces - have been occupying the universities for months now, parading through the streets of the capital, marching on foot for over 60 miles to Novi Sad, with the full support of the population who have not held back in offering food, hot drinks, assistance and even a free taxi ride back to Belgrade.³

Actions did not go without consequences: in the face of a country in flames, the government's clumsy handling of the demonstrations led to the resignation of Prime Minister Miloš Vučević,⁴ opening up to the possibility of new elections. A political crisis of no small importance, although promptly relegated by President Vučić during his visit to Banja Luka⁵ to a simple interference by foreign agents of unspecified Western origin, in an attempt to hold together the internal front and avoid a complete collapse of the Serbian political balance.⁶

The subject of harsh popular protest, in addition to the already known widespread corruption, is the opaqueness with which the new infrastructure projects currently under construction in Serbia are being managed.⁷ An aspect of particular relevance if read through the lens of geopolitical competition between the great powers in the Balkan area: the Novi Sad railway station, renovated only in March 2022, is part of the larger project almost entirely financed by Beijing for the high-speed connection between Belgrade and Budapest.⁸

A clear example, among the many that can be found in Serbia, of how Beijing is trying to operate a constant economic penetration "in Chinese style" not only to strengthen its geopolitical weight in the Balkans, but also to achieve the broader goal of extending its influence in Europe. Hence the interest in Serbia and the Balkan area: a direct transit route to the Old Continent, to be followed after having already entered with force with the door wide open by the Greeks with a sale of the ownership of the port of Piraeus, now two-thirds in the hands of the Chinese giant Cosco Shipping.⁹ And if the Balkan area appears politically, ethnically and socially unstable, it matters little: it is yet another opportunity to apply in an orthodox manner what has been done since the launch of the One Belt, One Road has become the modus operandi of Beijing – non-interference in the internal affairs of a foreign state, disinterest in respecting human rights at a local level, geo-economic leverage with the possibility of making the country subject to Chinese investments slide into “debt trap”. An expression that recalls the old days of Washington Consensus, but that in the Balkans it no longer sees (at the moment) the leading role of the United States, busy with reducing its international commitments to the Indo-Pacific area alone and therefore fully interested in delegating the management of Balkan affairs to the European Union.

But even the Serbs themselves are doubtful about European involvement and the success of American intentions: the process of accession to the European Union is at a standstill, Kosovo remains an issue far from resolved and the independence ambitions of the Republika Srpska – geographically part of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina – do nothing but add fuel to the fire of Serbian ultranationalism. A situation in which President Vučić can do nothing but play the balancing act: as the leader of a country in search of (geo)strategic weight, since Trump took office in the White House Vučić has repeatedly attempted to adopt a “multi-vector” foreign policy towards the great powers that orbit around Serbia, in order to optimize its geographical position as much as possible for political purposes.

If since 2022 Belgrade has dialectically aligned itself with Russia on the issue dossier Ukraine ignoring in whole Brussels' call to adopt sanctions against Russian President Putin and his entourage political and economic,¹⁰ More recently, Vučić has ambiguously distanced himself from Moscow, backtracking on a series of military contracts signed with the Kremlin.¹¹ Again, in favor of Beijing: Russian weapons were in fact replaced by Chinese equipment – ​​it should be noted that Serbia, a regional player outside of NATO's security architecture, is the only power on the enlarged European continent to possess the FK-3 air defense system.¹²

If Russia currently seems to be retreating on the Balkan side due to its military commitments in Ukraine, to take advantage of the turmoil regional is Turkey, which by exploiting the presence of international diversions is trying to carve out (or take back) in a pan-Turkish perspective that space already possessed by the Ottoman Empire during the centuries preceding its dissolution. Erdoğan's Turkey - thanks to a past of Ottoman domination - can in fact count on ethnic and religious affinities with the region, an aspect that cannot be replicated by any other world power. For this reason, alongside military conscription and the trade of the famous Bayraktar TB2 drones, Ankara has employed a constant religious and cultural influence as a means of soft power which is manifested above all in the diffusion – if not in the real unbridled success – of Turkish-produced TV series among the younger fringes of Balkan society.¹³ However, this cannot be applied to all the countries in the Balkan area: the cultural and religious aspect is considerably mitigated with Serbia – with a Slavic and Orthodox population – and the penetration towards Belgrade is slowed down not only by the country's historical ties with Moscow, but also by the very close relations between Ankara and Pristina (for example, the first country to stipulate trade agreements with Kosovo was Turkey).

On this last point, Turkish soldiers abound among the ranks of KFOR, and Erdoğan frequently praises the idea of ​​"one people, two states" already in common use with respect to Azerbaijan, which in the Kosovar version reads: Türkiye Kosova'dir, Türkiye 'dir, “Turkey is Kosovo, Kosovo is Turkey”.¹⁴

Last but not least, the memory of Turkey's participation in NATO operations culminating in the bombing of Belgrade in 1999 is alive in the memory of the Serbs, as is the awareness of Turkey's strategic priorities in the Balkans in relation to the control of energy corridors from the South Caucasus.

In any case, what is certain is that the game of the great powers in the Balkans is starting to show the first signs of weakness. The one paying the price is the stability of Serbia, which has always been vulnerable to the sparks of the Balkan powder keg. Which could – as the student protests show – spread a shock wave throughout the neighboring European continent, guilty of mere fleeting observations and of even less strategic depth in an area of ​​primary interest for the Brussels institutions (if not even for a common European house) and for Rome (in primis).