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In both nations, anger had been building for years until the final drop in the glass caused it to burst. In Serbia, the tragic infrastructure collapse was a stark reminder that corruption will eventually claim people’s lives. In Georgia, it was the government’s declared foreign policy reversal—a shift that, if left unopposed, protesters fear, could be existentially fatal for the country.
On November 1, a canopy in front of the newly rebuilt train station in Serbia’s second-largest city, Novi Sad, collapsed, claiming 15 lives. The tragic event reignited the corruption claims on this Chinese-funded railway infrastructure project, whose details remain classified. The lack of transparency, characteristic of President Aleksandar Vučić’s administration, appears to have reached a breaking point. A few weeks later, on November 22, students and professors holding a vigil outside the faculty of dramatic arts in Belgrade were attacked by individuals affiliated with the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). This led students to occupy the faculty. Soon, the government was facing a broad protest movement led by students.
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One routinely sees the EU flags flying alongside the Georgian ones during the protests; sometimes, one can spot the Ukrainian, U.S., and German flags. Not so in Serbia. There, the state flags fly, intermingled and often dominated by the protest symbols – blank canvases with bloody handprints, symbolizing that the government’s hands are in the blood of people who died in Novi Sad.
If the Serbian protesters are focused on domestic affairs, such as corruption and other governance issues, that is because foreign policy aspirations do not unify Serb protesters as much as Georgians.
“Anything related to geopolitics will only bring polarization among people who are united against all the wrongdoings of the Serbian government,” says Milan Vujic, a 27-year-old Serbian lawyer and activist who has actively participated in the movement. If protesters start bringing in EU flags, he adds, “it can only bring internal debates and polarization into the protests, which is not needed at all.”
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The resulting contrast in the EU’s response to the two protests has been striking. In Georgia, where the people want their pro-EU efforts recognized, and the government has effectively broken off any dialogue with Brussels, EU officials have been vocal about their concerns and even imposed limited visa sanctions. Meanwhile, in Serbia, where Vučić maintains his ties with Brussels, the EU response has been much more muted.
Yet, in Georgia, the pro-Western sentiment is not only geopolitical. It can also be seen as a shorthand for the desired governance model. The rallies against the “foreign agents” law dubbed it the “Russian law” because the implementation of such legislation brings the country into the Russian model of governance—despotic, corrupt, arbitrary, and fundamentally unfree.
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