cepa.org Vučić Hangs on and Hopes for Better Days Ferenc Németh 8–10 minutes
If you think you had a bad year, just look at Aleksandar Vučić. Serbia’s strongman, now in power for almost a decade and a half, had a seriously bad 2025. Challenges such as student protests, blows to economic megaprojects, and the failure to win hoped-for favoritism with President Trump put the Serbian leader in an uneasy position. This new year will be characterized by what we might term a Waiting for Godot strategy characterized by political damage control. Internally, problems are not merely looming; they are so serious that they may represent the first nails in the government’s political coffin. The protests may have been student-led, but they encompassed a remarkably heterogenous segment of Serbian society all year long. Popular unrest was triggered by the Novi Sad station canopy collapse in November 2024 that killed 16 people. Showing no signs of exhaustion, protesters are still firmly committed to their goals of greater accountability and transparency, a freer judiciary and media, and the holding of snap elections. The masks are now off. Tactics often employed by the government, such as smear campaigns against activists and academic staff, distractions through self-generated crises in the north of Kosovo, and blaming neighboring or unnamed Western countries for interference, have failed to break the protesters’ spirit and support. The more violent the government and its hooligans became in efforts to crack down on peaceful demonstrators, the more determined the demonstrators became. Their immunity to these tactics is a worrying sign for Vučić. How he finds a grip on this large, grassroots movement will remain a central question in 2026, too. Although the power of the protesters speaks for itself (one rally in March attracted more than 300,000 demonstrators), it does not mean that the government — Vučić, in particular — will go quietly. A political standoff has emerged: any concession would either mean the end of the protests or the possible collapse of the system. This deadlock is likely to persist throughout the year. Vučić was also forced to bid farewell to major economic projects. In November, the British-Australian mining company Rio Tinto announced the indefinite suspension of its proposed lithium mine investment in Serbia. A few weeks later, the American investment firm Affinity Partners, founded by President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, withdrew its Belgrade-based luxury development project. The lithium mining project would have brought around $3bn in badly needed foreign investment and the hotel construction about $500m. For Vučić, losing these “pet projects” not only damages Serbia’s economy but also cuts deeply into his political ego. Additionally, the political benefits — namely, garnering extra votes through announcements of large-scale investment projects — remain an unfulfilled dream for the coming year. The most pressing economic challenge Serbia will continue to face this year concerns its sole oil refinery. NIS, majority-owned by Russia’s Gazprom Neft, has been under US sanctions since March, with full enforcement effective from October 2025. Although OFAC, the Department of the Treasury’s responsive body, granted NIS a special license to continue operations until January 22, this does not change the requirement that Russian ownership must be reduced to exactly zero percent. Negotiations must also be finalized by mid-March — most likely with Hungary’s MOL purchasing the Russian shareholding — but the transaction still requires US approval. The firm US stance on NIS demonstrates that Washington’s primary concern is not the interests of Serbia’s government but the removal of Russian energy influence and the expansion of American energy interests — such as liquefied natural gas, or LNG, and small nuclear power plants — across Europe, including the Balkans. This goal leaves little room for Vučić, despite his strong pro-Trump alignment. Get the Latest Sign up to receive regular emails and stay informed about CEPA's work. These strict demands and deadlines caught Vučić off guard. He had hoped that Trump’s return to the White House would pave the way for the golden age of bilateral relations, bringing political and economic benefits to Serbia. Like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Republika Srpska’s Milorad Dodik in Bosnia, Vučić had high expectations of Trump’s presidency. Instead, the US administration has so far remained pragmatic, prioritizing its broader strategic interests over personal affinities in the Balkans. The US continues to support mutual recognition as the desired outcome of the Serbia-Kosovo normalization talks, despite Vučić’s hope for a more “pro-Serbian” stance. Moreover, the bipartisan Western Balkans Democracy and Prosperity Act, part of the National Defense Authorization Act, reiterates the importance of mutual recognition, and also names Serbia as a country where democracy is deteriorating and electoral conditions are unfair. There is still a strong bipartisan support for maintaining existing borders, particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, and for regional stability. This position has even been echoed by Trump himself, who counts Serbia and Kosovo among the eight wars he claims to have ended in 2025. In the European context, Serbia’s EU accession prospects have never been bleaker. A more outspoken European Commission and vocal member states have begun to challenge the government, despite acknowledging Serbia’s geopolitical importance for the region. Apart from rule-of-law issues, Serbia’s reluctance to align with the EU’s common foreign and security policy has become particularly costly. Until 2022, Vučić could get away with his balancing strategy, but Russia’s war against Ukraine has made foreign policy alignment a key criterion also for candidate countries. Meanwhile, Serbia’s neighbors are slowly but steadily advancing on their EU accession paths, with Montenegro and Albania being prime examples. Serbia under Vučić can further expect the same stagnation in its EU accession effort as last year. Under Vučić’s rule, Serbia has developed a system of state capture marked by rule-of-law deficiencies and a sharp decline across all major democratic indices. The long-standing balancing act between East and West — maintaining the façade of EU aspirations while deepening ties with Russia and China — is increasingly difficult, especially under global shifts and US foreign policy interests. The problems of last year have not faded; they have only intensified. Internal pressures — especially the student-led protests — may force Vučić to call snap elections by the end of 2026 as a last-ditch effort to cement his reign. At the same time, disappointment with US foreign policy toward Serbia — marked by self-interest and pragmatism rather than favoritism — has further weakened his position. Amid internal challenges and miscalculations about global political shifts working in his favor, the Serbian strongman may continue doing what he has done for most of the past year: pursue a wait-and-see policy, in hopes of ensuring his own survival. Ferenc Németh is a Ph.D. candidate at Corvinus University of Budapest. He has previously conducted research on the Western Balkans in Toronto and Skopje, worked as a research fellow at the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, and interned at EULEX Kosovo. His areas of expertise include the Western Balkans, EU enlargement, and regional security. Ferenc was a Denton Fellow at CEPA in 2024. Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications. Europe's Edge CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. Read More https://cepa.org/article/vucic-hangs-on-and-hopes-for-better-days/ -- http:www.antic.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SERBIAN NEWS NETWORK" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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