Political scientist Florian Bieber assessed that Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić has lost an ally within the EU following Viktor Orbán’s fall from power in Hungary, adding that this shows “such types of rulers can lose elections.”
Asked whether there is any way to improve relations between Serbia’s current government and Brussels, Bieber told N1 that he has doubts.
“I think they can no longer be improved. Of course, there are EU member states that want to preserve relations for pragmatic or economic reasons, or because they believe Serbia is extremely important for the Western Balkans. However, they are also aware that these relations cannot return to any kind of normality with Vučić, especially if we consider the timeframe until the elections in Serbia—there is not enough time for relations to improve by then. I doubt they can ever be repaired,” Bieber emphasised.
When asked why the EU had no issue in 2011 and 2012 accepting Tomislav Nikolić and Aleksandar Vučić, who came from the Serbian Radical Party, yet had difficulty in some way supporting the students, Bieber said that the current situation is completely different.
“At that time, Vučić and Nikolić presented themselves as great Europeans, and the EU hoped that by supporting them it could help normalise Serbia’s political system. Of course, the result was the exact opposite. The idea was that if there was a possibility of replacing the ruling political party with another that was also pro-European, that would represent a form of normalisation. Naturally, the current situation is entirely different. The reason for this difference is that the EU generally thinks in conventional terms – it looks for political representatives and parties it can engage with, and it did not have that in those protests, which was the main obstacle,” he said.
Commenting on the level of repression and measures against universities, Bieber assessed that it is clear to the EU that “the Government of Serbia is not willing to improve the state of democracy; on the contrary, the situation is deteriorating.”
Addressing announcements that the EU might withhold funds from the Growth Plan for Serbia, Bieber stated that the EU is “gaining increasing courage to respond more assertively to the measures undertaken by Serbia under this government.”
“In my assessment, that courage has grown far too slowly,” he added.
He also recalled that the “Mrdić laws” on the judiciary were controversial not only because of their content, but also due to the way they were adopted without public debate.
“It is quite clear that no one has much trust in this government, especially given that it is now under pressure, has lost considerable support, and therefore has an even greater incentive to interfere in the electoral system and attempt to manipulate electoral conditions to suit its own needs,” he concluded.
(021.rs, 28.04.2026)