Serbia: the EL supports the Student List
STATEMENT OF THE EUROPEAN LEFT
The Party of the European Left supports the “Student List – Students Are Winning” in Serbia’s early parliamentary elections on 25 October.
Aleksandar Vučić’s rule rests on a simple exchange. Serbia offers foreign capital low wages, weak labour protection, generous state subsidies and access to land, water and raw materials. In return, the regime receives investment, political recognition and silence about its authoritarian practices. This model has been offered to every major power and investor willing to accept it, in the West and the East alike. Each partner gets its deal. Each looks away when protesters are beaten, journalists threatened and institutions subordinated to the ruling party..
The cost is borne by working people. Thousands, above all the young, have left the country in search of a decent life. Those who stay often work for subsidised investors where wages are low and trade union organising is met with obstruction, near mining and industrial sites that have raised serious concerns over water, air and health, and in a public sector where employment too often depends on political loyalty. The 2024 strategic partnership on critical raw materials, which opened the door to the Jadar lithium project, showed that the EU is ready to trade democratic standards for secure supply chains for its own industry..
The collapse of the Novi Sad railway station canopy in November 2024, which killed 16 people, exposed what happens when public infrastructure is built through opaque deals with foreign partners and politically connected companies. The student movement that rose in response demanded accountability and transparency in public contracts. The regime answered with repression and smear campaigns.
The Student List now brings these demands to the ballot box. It emerged from a decentralised movement, and its 250 candidates are doctors, farmers, teachers, workers, artists, academics, and other citizens from across Serbia. It is supported by a broad range of opposition parties and civil society organisations. It is the most serious challenge to Vučić’s system since he came to power in 2012.
The European Left stands with the students and citizens of Serbia. We call on the European Commission and EU governments to stop treating Vučić as a guarantor of stability and investment, and to recognise that Serbia’s future will be decided by its people, not by the interests of those who profit from its subordination.