BELGRADE, Serbia—Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is riding the multipolar wave, stringing along EU accession talks while also forging closer ties with the US, Russia and China.
Serbia is among ten countries negotiating EU membership, a process it began in 2014. For Vučić, membership promises funding, market access and legitimacy — but also demands reforms and a resolution of the Kosovo question.
Publicly, Vučić has maintained a pro-European stance, framing EU accession as a national goal. In practice, he’s deepening ties with rival global powers: China builds Serbia’s motorways and Russia supplies its energy. Brussels continues to offer legitimacy, despite the slow pace of reforms. That balancing act has allowed Vučić to posture as both a reformer and a regional strongman.
Vučić’s ability to walk a tightrope between the West, Russia and China is, in part, a result of enlargement fatigue in Brussels, reducing its leverage. Meanwhile, Serbia continues to crack down on media freedom and democratic rights. This has given Vučić room to engage with rival powers while paying lip service to EU integration.
“He is trying to muddle through and achieve some tactical, short-term benefits,” Filip Ejdus, a professor of security studies at the University of Belgrade, told The Parliament. “It's based on this idea that in the increasingly multipolar world, it makes more sense to hedge your bets than to align with one of the big powers.”
During a visit to Serbia on 22 May, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, told Vučić that “there are no shortcuts to membership,” adding that “the next steps include freedom of the media, fighting corruption, and electoral reform.” Earlier in the month, European Council President António Costa had called Serbia’s accession “a trust-building process” and urged swift reforms to open the next negotiating chapter.
Despite this diplomatic encouragement, Serbia’s path to membership has largely stalled. While it has formally opened 22 of 35 areas of reform —known as “chapters”— since negotiations began in 2012, it has closed only two. With democratic reforms seemingly stalled, Vučić also continues to resist full alignment with EU foreign policy, especially on Ukraine.
Vučić’s strategy has earned him some points at home among right-wingers and nationalists. But student-led protests continue to wrack the country. They have been protesting government corruption after the collapse of a railway station canopy in the city of Novi Sad last November killed 16 people.
As global powers compete for influence in the Western Balkans, Serbia has become a test of EU influence in its neighbourhood. But without consequences for democratic backsliding, autocrats are emboldened and the limits of Brussels’ geopolitical leverage are exposed.
The EU’s diminishing leverage in Belgrade
While Serbia balances various geopolitical powers, it continues to be legitimised by EU leaders — who have embraced Vučić as an ally, referred to Serbia's “democratic destiny,” and said that the EU cannot exist as a whole without Serbia in it.
On paper, Serbia is closer to EU membership now than it was in the past. But in reality, it has continued to move away from EU standards and rules. The bloc is also facing a series of existential challenges, including Donald Trump's return to the White House, Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine — initially a catalyst for the enlargement agenda — and rule-of-law backsliding among existing members.
“The EU is in a crisis of its own … and therefore the EU is unable to speak unequivocally on many different sets of problems and policies,” Marko Kmezic, a researcher at the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, told The Parliament.
When it comes to Ukraine, Belgrade has exported ammunition to Kyiv via third parties, but Vučić has failed to condemn Russia’s invasion — even going so far as to celebrate Victory Day in Moscow alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin in early May.
“What he did with Putin's [Victory Day] parade… I think that's a test for the EU,” Radomir Lazović, co-president of the Green–Left Front (ZLF) in the Serbian National Assembly, told The Parliament. “If he can do these things and still be their champion of European integration, as Ursula von der Leyen said, I think then it says a lot about the hypocrisy of the Union.”
While Vučić has made deals beneficial to the EU — like sending arms to Ukraine, signing a lithium deal with German, and buying military aircraft from France — this has not softened his strongman tendencies or his embrace of the Kremlin.
“He's really keeping everyone happy and pleased, and that is giving him some leverage when it comes to politics. The EU is not seeing an alternative to his rule in Serbia,” said Kmezic.
Vučić’s diplomatic manoeuvring helps maintain his grip on power while advancing key EU economic priorities, particularly around Serbia’s rich natural resources like its vast Jadar lithium deposit.
“Even to pro-Europeans, they felt they were abandoned by the EU,” said Ejdus. Former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other EU leaders "prioritised their strategic goals vis-a-vis rare earths and lithium and the automobile industry and competition with the Chinese with electric vehicles, over ‘minor problems’ with Serbian democracy,” he added.
Playing East against West
Vučić has a long history of being pro-EU on paper. When Serbia achieved EU candidate status back in 2012, he made a number of concessions. He agreed to recognise Kosovo’s independence following the Serbian-Kosovo war, as well as to align with EU standards on the rule of law, the economy, and human rights — but scant progress has been made on any of those commitments.
Meanwhile, Vučić has deepened ties with Beijing. China has invested more than $10 billion in Serbia through its Belt and Road Initiative, with the majority of that cash going into infrastructure like bridges, buildings and transport.
China solidified its standing in Belgrade during the Covid-19 pandemic, sending experts and personal protection equipment (PPE) to Serbia to help cope with the pandemic. At the time, Vučić said that “European solidarity does not exist” and that “Serbia now turns its eyes to China.”
“Covid was, I think, the turning point when the Chinese really came to the region as one of the key players,” said Ejdus.
Another major player is Russia, whose energy ties to the region predate Vučić. In 2008, Serbia sold a 51% stake in its oil-and-gas company NIS to Russia’s Gazprom for €400 million and €550 million in promised investments; Gazprom later increased its stake to 56.5%.
Yet Russia’s role in Serbia extends well beyond economic investments. It remains a crucial political and intelligence ally, particularly in shielding Belgrade from international pressure over Kosovo. The two sides have been in a frozen conflict since Kosovo, a former Serbian province, unilaterally declared independence in 2008 following a brutal war in the late 1990s. Serbia refuses to recognise Kosovo’s statehood, and relies heavily on Russia’s veto power at the UN Security Council to block its international recognition.
This has reinforced Serbia’s reluctance to fully align with the West on key geopolitical issues. The support comes at little cost to Russia and secures it a favourable deal on energy in return. “That's why Serbia had a very hard time aligning with the EU foreign security policy on sanctions because it fears Russia could stop vetoing the issue of Kosovo,” said Ejdus.
At the same time, Vučić has also courted the US. Until recently, Belgrade was moving ahead with plans led by Trump’s son in law, Jared Kushner, to build a $500 million luxury hotel on the damaged remains of the former Yugoslav defence ministry, which was bombed by NATO jets in 1999.
Rise of Serbia’s protest movement
On the domestic front, Vučić has faced growing dissent over environmental issues, cronyism and state dysfunction. Since the collapse of the Novi Sad train station, protesters have called out endemic grift and demanded more transparency from the government.
The station had recently been renovated as part of a Chinese-led upgrade that began in 2021, which local authorities said was up to "European standards” in July 2024. Key project documentation has been classified.
After former Prime Minister Miloš Vučević resigned amid protests in January, a new cabinet was confirmed in April under political novice Djuro Macut, a Vučić ally. Most ministers — 22 of 30 — were holdovers, and the role of prime minister is largely ceremonial.
For many young protesters, the reshuffle was cosmetic, failing to address systemic frustrations.
“We are not working against Vučić. That is not our goal. We do not care about him,” Aleksandra, 23, a student at the University of Novi Sad who has taken part in protests since December, told The Parliament.
“We want our institutions to work and not to work through puppets who are placed there to lead the functions. To work as independent institutions as they should,” she added.
Student protesers have been calling for early parlimamentary elections, currently scheduled for early 2027.
Veljko, 23, who helped organise a recent Novi Sad-to-Strasbourg cycling protest trip that made headlines, said: “We hope that we have shown the people that we are ready to make change and we need support back."
Vučić has at times blamed the protests on “Western actors” like the CIA and calls them a “colour revolution.” To a Western audience, he hints at Russian involvement.
For now, the protests show no sign of abating. What arose from public grief has hardened into a generational demand for institutional overhaul.
“We showed people that the regime is not invincible. Until October, there was a common conception that they're invincible and irreplaceable,” said Veljko. “We’ve shown them that that's not the case, that even small people can stand up and raise their voice.”
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