According to the Eurobarometer Spring 2026 survey, the attitudes in Serbia towards:
◾ Russia – 71% positive, 28% negative
◾ China – 64% positive, 35% negative
◾ EU – 32% positive, 34% negative
Support for sanctions against the Russian government, individuals, and companies is 29 percent, while 67 percent are opposed. 36 per cent of Serbian citizens have confidence in the EU, while just 35 per cent believe that joining the EU would be a good thing.
Analysts speaking to the daily newspaper Blic say the reasons should be sought in the fact that an increasing number of Serbian citizens view the EU as an actor applying double standards, while also doubting that EU membership would bring economic prosperity.
In other news, Hannibal Lecter shares with us that he doesn’t care much for fruit salads.
This sentiment is also repeated by the Speaker of Serbia’s parliament, Ana Brnabić. In an interview with Politico, Brnabić says the EU’s recent approach to enlargement is unfair and argues the rules of the game have changed since Serbia began accession talks in 2014.
What a wonderful expression of national unity – both the ruling party and the common folk feel the same, and indulge in a perpetual victimhood narrative on how poor, little Serbia is treated unfairly.
May 9th was celebrated in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, by organizing a pro-Russian Immortal Regiment gathering, the same kind that Russia holds every May 9th during the Victory Day parade, organized by the Russian embassy, to our everlasting shame.
N1 reports that Dragan Djilas, president of the opposition Freedom and Justice Party, said that “It is high time that both we and Europe change. We have begun our changes, and we expect Europe to support them so that Serbia can become a full member of the EU by 2030.” Serbian narcissism at its finest.
So let’s see what choice gifts in store Serbia has to offer to this Europe “that needs to change”:
▪️ oodles of plastic waste and tailings from the Drina River
▪️ exports of nickel-cadmium fruits and vegetables laced with hepatitis
▪️ Belgrade, which discharges its untreated sewage directly into the Danube and Sava
▪️ aflatoxin milk
▪️ the most pro-Russian population on planet Earth
▪️ epic pollution from Chinese mines in Bor and Majdanpek
▪️ epic pollution from the Chinese ironworks in Smederevo
▪️ “It’s all the EU’s fault” coalition government
▪️ “It’s all the EU’s fault” coalition in opposition
▪️ Russian-Serbian humanitarian center in Niš
▪️ student movement religious fanatics
Europe must be rushing to change so it can join with Serbia’s plentiful bounty in 2030.
N1: Serbia is the only EU candidate country in the Western Balkans that has not aligned with the EU’s four new foreign policy decisions about Belarus and the situation in Ukraine.
“Situation in Ukraine” – that’s pro-democratic media in Serbia for you, calling the Russian aggression against Ukraine a “situation” so that the pro-Russian viewership doesn’t get their delicate fe-fe’s hurt. The pro-government media are even worse, BTW.
No, it is not a government rally nor a student protest, but then again, what’s the difference – it is this year’s Feast of the Ascension procession in Belgrade, Serbia. Notice the Russian and Wagner PMC flags. Serbia has the democratic, pro-EU potential just as much as Russia does.
This year was special – The Holy Girdle (or Belt of the Most Holy Theotokos), brought to Serbia with much pomp, with the attendance of Aleksandar Vučić and Patriarch Porfirije. The Serbian Orthodox Church is considered a national institution by acclamation.
It turned out to be the hottest event in Serbia. It has been displayed at the Temple of Saint Sava in Vračar, downtown Belgrade, for eight days now, and a multitude of faithful are queuing up to kiss it, some of them waiting for 10 hours in line in the summer heat.
Even pregnant women or those with small children. The local press and large sections of the commentariat are unironically hailing them as “heroes”. Never mind the water shortages in Čačak or gangland murders in Belgrade, or more and more exported food products being returned for non-conformities.
THIS is what matters to us, the “suffering” Serbian people – The Magic Belts of the Holistic Pokemons.
This is how a typical “debate” with the Serbian anti-EU pro-student crowd looks like – banging your head against the wall of imaginary support the EU is somehow giving to Serbian authorities.
Funny how no one ever blames Vučić’s/nationalist voters or Russia and China for Serbia’s woes. But hey, let’s produce another Memorandum, since the last one worked so great.
Maybe tourism will be a development chance after Vučić is gone and everything becomes hunky dory. Apart from religious pilgrimages, visitors might enjoy the Serbian cuisine, the most over-priced comfort food known to man, and then sightsee peak Serbia scenes such as these – a 40-year-old tramcar went off the rails in Old Town, Belgrade, and rammed itself into a sports betting and gambling parlor operating in a space rented from the Serbian Orthodox Church, leaving 20 people injured.
Maybe the Allmighty is trying to send them a message.
Russian ambassador to Serbia, Botsan-Kharchenko: “The EU aims to remove Aleksandar Vučić. I remain absolutely convinced that these protests are organized and supported from outside…When we say ‘outside’, we mean Brussels, the European Union, but also certain circles that are in some way connected to the European Union or key EU countries.”
Such comments by His Excellency do not amuse the pro-EU part of the Serbian public, however small a minority they might be.
Chinese President Xi Jinping awarded Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic the Friendship Medal, the highest state honor of the People’s Republic of China for foreign nationals.
Established pursuant to the Law of the People’s Republic of China on National Medals and National Honorary Titles, which took effect on January 1, 2016, it is awarded to foreigners who have made outstanding contributions to China’s socialist modernization, promoted international exchanges and cooperation with China, and safeguarded world peace.
Socialist modernization, and safeguarding world peace be like:
The head of Serbia’s parliament, Ana Brnabić, says the EU’s recent approach to enlargement is unfair and argues the rules of the game have changed since Serbia began accession talks in 2014.
“The EU is changing its standpoint toward enlargement, and obviously this is becoming an increasingly hot topic,” Ana Brnabić, president of the country’s National Assembly and a former prime minister, told POLITICO on Thursday at the GLOBSEC Forum in Prague. That shifting stance is especially visible in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she added.
“When we started the game…back in 2014…you have this gradual alignment with common foreign security policy, and you need to align 100 percent before entering into the EU. Now those rules of the game have changed, but I don’t think that that is actually fair,” she said.
On the other hand, “If Serbia had imposed sanctions on Russia, I would have been proclaimed the greatest democratic leader in the world,” Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić said, speaking for Informer television. “But I would betray the soul of our people,” the Serbian president emphasized, according to Russian TASS reports.
It is a common practice amongst nationalist movements and figures, Serbian ones included, to whine about “injustices” and “unfair treatment”, while at the same time not following the rules you agreed to.
Authoritarians are not dignified, assertive people – they are crybabies.
So it’s perfectly understandable that Serbia, the most polluted country in Europe, where Chinese companies “employ” victims of human trafficking, and where there are still possible civilian mass grave sites from the last war, is complaining about imaginary unfairness from the big bad EU.
In the minds of authoritarians, democracy, civil, and human rights, and the rule of law are foreign Western tools designed to destroy the national identity of non-Western peoples. Therefore, strong leadership is necessary to keep the yucky democracy away, even by military force.
The way places like Russia, China, or Serbia see it, a military and political threat is one and the same. A free election in Hungary or Ukraine might as well be a bomb in Moscow.
China remains ever-so-popular amongst the supporters of both dominant political tribes.
One of the reasons for the enduring popularity of the government of Serbia is the procurement of new Chinese and Russian weapons – air defense, drones, missiles, attack helicopters. Pointing it out is not damaging to Progressives – to the Serbian electorate, it is a praise of the highest order.
Such a wise policy of peace pursued by Serbia is already yielding results – The European Commission (EC) on Wednesday made available 49 million euros to Albania, 44.2 million euros to Montenegro, and 65.7 million euros to North Macedonia under the European Union (EU) Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, the EC said in a press release.
Unlike Albania, Montenegro, and North Macedonia, which met the requirements for this tranche, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were excluded from this round because they still haven’t implemented the reform steps that were prerequisites for the release of these funds.
The funds for Serbia are being withheld until the required conditions are met, after which the Commission can approve the payment for Belgrade.
A key condition remains progress in the rule of law, specifically the implementation of the Venice Commission’s recommendations regarding recently adopted laws governing the judiciary and the prosecution, originally proposed by Ugljesa Mrdic, an MP from the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).
Serbia be trollin’: The commission tasked with implementing the changes to the so-called Mrdić laws has, as one of its members, yup, you guessed it – Uglješa Mrdić.
Yeah, we really showed those stupid Europeans we mean business, right?
Serbian tentacles are spilling over to neighbouring countries.
The gathering in Kumanovo, North Macedonia, was held on May 23rd, the same day when the student protest was held in Belgrade. Several hundred citizens carried the slogans “We are Vučić”, “Kumanovo for Vučić” and “Skopje for Vučić”, as well as the flags of Serbia and North Macedonia.
The Macedonian opposition party SDSM stated that the ruling VMRO-DPMNE is behind the gathering of citizens of Kumanovo, who protested in support of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić.
Comments from Macedonian netizens about it:
Macedonian VMRO-DPMNE and Serbia do have a history. Nikola Gruevski, the former Prime Minister of North Macedonia, fled to Hungary in November 2018 to avoid a two-year prison sentence for corruption.
He was reportedly assisted by the Hungarian diplomatic service, which used embassy vehicles to transport him through Albania, Montenegro, and Serbia before he reached Budapest. His extradition to Macedonia remains blocked.
In recent years, the nationalist vox populi in Serbia increased chatter and sloganism about Macedonia “having no national identity, being a fake nation, and that it has always been a Serbian land”.
The same goes for Montenegro, which was also subjected to similar spectacles.
This December, there were protests in Botun, the municipality of Zeta. Citizens led by the President of the Municipality of Zeta, Mihailo Asanović, and the leader of the Democratic People’s Party, Milan Knežević, blocked the work of waterworks workers constructing a sewage treatment plant funded by the European Union.
Reactions from Serbian media and the government were: “Disgrace of Montenegro and disgrace of the EU”, “I’m not sure that Serbia really wants to join such an EU”, “Fierce conflict over the construction of a water treatment plant.”
The “disgrace” and “fierce conflict” be like:
Love the reporter’s expression.
Yes, there are people in Montenegro protesting against wastewater treatment. And they have support from Serbia.
But what drives such a pro-feces attitude of the Serbian World?
Basically, it is the “cut the nose to spite the face” idiocy of Serbian revanchism that would inflict self-wounds to “take revenge” against the West.
People like Morbile will blame the West for burned toast.
Serbian eighth graders celebrated their last day of school. Scenes of them parading around with anti-Western and nationalist iconography and chants could be seen all across the country. It isn’t a new development – such attitudes have been common and socially acceptable for four decades now.
Here we have school kids chanting the name of Ratko Mladić, a Bosnian Serb general convicted of war crimes (video is from downtown Belgrade, Serbia). Mladić is considered a hero amongst the nationalist inclined Serbs.
Yes, yes, I know, BREAKING NEWS: Teenagers doing something stupid, movie at 11.
But the excuse they and their apologists use for such behavior is “we, the kids, weren’t born then, so it’s okay to be fans of war criminals and be far-right radicals”.
The May 23rd student protest on Slavija Square in Belgrade was yet another re-run of far-right silliness that we witnessed in Serbia for over four decades.
Serbia doesn’t need an EU membership, it doesn’t want an EU membership – it doesn’t even want personal hygiene products and sewage processing.
[Featured image caption: “Šešelj is winning”, a political slogan sticker from Serbia].
Serbianism 