REPCO

November 1st was an unusually warm workday in Serbia. Noon was approaching. The train station building in Novi Sad was slowly becoming empty. A moment earlier, a high-speed train aptly named Soko (Falcon) had left the platform, connecting the capital of Vojvodina and the main city of northern Serbia – Novi Sad – with the capital, Belgrade. The purchase of modern, fast and comfortable trains not only reduced travel time between the two cities to half an hour but also became a source of pride for the people of Serbia, as it is the most modern railway line in the Balkans. This project is part of the modernization of the Belgrade – Budapest railway that is being implemented by Chinese and Russian companies. This project aims to eventually connect the Greek port in Piraeus with Hungary. The investment has been delayed for years. According to initial plans from a decade ago, it should have been launched in 2017, yet the opening of the Novi Sad – Belgrade line was still regarded as a great success. The first passengers on the train were Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The authorities in Serbia are implementing many bombastic and costly projects, among them an exclusive compound for apartments. However, these bring few benefits. But this new train connection was used by everyone. Moreover, the fast, comfortable, quiet, modern train embodied the economic success of the country in recent years. This provided evidence that Serbia is rebuilding after decades of poverty and stagnation due to the aftermath of the wars of the 1990s and the global economic crisis of 2008.

Corruption that kills

During the modernization of the railway line, the train station built in the 1960s – one of the city’s symbols – was also renovated. It is a lightweight, social-modernist structure with a characteristic wavy roof inspired by traditional regional architecture. That afternoon, under the concrete canopy at the main entrance, several people were resting on the benches. At 11:52, the canopy collapsed. Fifteen people died (with one dying later in hospital). Two are in a very serious condition and will never fully recover.

“It could have been any of us. Every resident of the whole region has stood under that canopy at some point,” Radivoje Jovović, a professor at the University of Novi Sad and a political activist, tells me. After the disaster, the city was plunged into sadness and shock. Everyone was aware that only by chance it was not them or their loved ones who were victims.

“The modernization project for the station cost 65 million euros,” explains the local resident and political scientist Dejan Bursač from the Institute of Philosophy and Social Theory. “And we are not talking about building a new station, but about renovating the existing railway station,” he emphasizes. He also explains that such high costs for infrastructure investments in Serbia are primarily the result of corruption schemes and a significant number of intermediaries. Projects are implemented without appropriate oversight, the quality of work is questionable, documentation is secret, and contracts are awarded to companies that have political connections. Such practices are part of maintaining a network of supporters, which is the basis of the current regime's power and influence. Overall, the disaster clearly shows that public infrastructure projects are being implemented in the same fashion and still pose a serious threat to the lives and health of residents.

Jovović notes that there are many projects being carried out mainly by Chinese contractors and their Serbian partners across the region. For example, one of the key road projects is a tunnel under Fruška Gora National Park, which is supposed to be the longest in all of Serbia. I think now everyone wonders if traveling on that road will be safe. When Chinese investors are involved, supervision and institutional control are almost non-existent. The station in Novi Sad and the newly built Belgrade train station were opened before the proper permits and formal approval for use had been obtained. There are now photos circulating on the web of the Belgrade train station's underperformance, the station is leaking, and many installations are not working. The question is when and where the next disaster will occur.

A vison that collapsed

The Serbian president – Aleksandar Vučic – regularly visits construction sites boasting about the rapid progress of the work. Investments were supposed to build wealth and drive economic development. Currently, the flagship project under construction is the national stadium in Belgrade and the exhibition pavilions for EXPO in 2027. The Serbian Progressive Party government, in power since 2012 and controlled completely by President Aleksandar Vučić, built its popularity on the promise of economic development. This was best seen in infrastructural and foreign investment. Indeed, quality of life did seem to improve, with the president underlining at every turn that the people owe this to him. The authorities have built their popularity on the cult of infrastructure investment. Bursač has noted that “it's the main element of their propaganda.” However, now these projects have begun to inspire fear instead of pride, which calls into question the past achievements of those in power and undermines the main propaganda messages of the authorities. However, at the same time, to stay in power the ruling elites have captured state institutions, while freedom of media is very limited and the rule of law is constantly declining. Law enforcement agencies are not going after organized crime groups (sometimes they even cooperate with them) but are instead chasing and intimidating the opposition and activists critical of the government. This is all supported by the government tabloids, which are undermining the credibility of everyone who dares to express reservations about the actions of the authorities. The government managed to convince the citizens that political engagement is very risky and costly, that politics is dirty, that every politician is the same and that political change in Serbia is impossible. None of the big protests, which have regularly erupted in Serbia since 2016, have changed anything. This has led to apathy and disengagement, especially among the young people.

Obliterating traces 

When residents of Novi Sad laid flowers and lit candles for the victims the authorities were silent. None of those in power came to the site of the tragedy. Prime Minister Miloš Vučević had just been on a several-day visit to Shanghai, where he encouraged Chinese partners to make more investments. The visit was not interrupted. It was an attempt to wait out the catastrophe, and at the time the entire propaganda machine of the state tried to shift responsibility to someone else. This is a permanent feature of the policy of this government according to Biljana Đorđević, the co-chairman of the Green-Left Front party. Over the following days, documentation of the investment in question began to disappear from official government websites, as well as photos of officials boasting about the finalization of the project.

However, the rulers underestimated the scale of the population's horror and the symbolic significance of the disaster, assuming that the people demanding justice would be pacified and any protesters intimidated. It was expected that the people would quickly forget. In Serbia in recent years there have been many accidents and incidents for which no one has been held responsible. The coherence of the regime system under President Vučić is based on guarantees of impunity for his people. No one resigns, and the president does not bow to pressure from the street, even when protesters simply demand that the guilty be punished.

You have blood on your hands

The authorities tried to calm the mood by saying that the justice system would handle the case. However, witnesses were pressured and the prosecutor's office remained silent. Đorđević noted that the public was not informed about the progress of the investigation. That triggered protests though initially only in Novi Sad. After the first wave of action nine mainly young people were detained, while people were beaten by hooligans and unmarked policemen. That only escalated the discontent. A week after the huge tragedy, people demanding justice were in custody instead of those responsible for the tragedy. The students and pupils from the high schools supported by their teachers joined the protest. Currently, almost all faculties and a lot of high schools in Serbia are now blocked and occupied by young people. Every day at 11:52 in the morning street blockades are organized throughout Serbia for fifteen minutes to honour the victims and demand justice. “We demand a detailed investigation of the case and the reconstruction of the entire chain of people responsible for what happened,” says Jovović. Đorđević is of a similar opinion: “We want the declassification of all documentation on modernization and police officers who beat protesters and people in custody to be held accountable.” These demands are very problematic for the current regime. Thus, proper investigations would expose the whole corrupt network at home and abroad that enables this regime to stay in power and hold a tight grip over society. The chain of responsibility ultimately goes all the way up to the main core of the power structures. Vučević, the current prime minister and formal leader of the ruling party, was mayor of Novi Sad for more than a decade. It was during his tenure that the system of connections and corruption controlling the region's construction sector was created and contracts for the modernization of the train station were signed.

Test of strength

The government tried to react to the protest in the usual way through a mixture of intimidation and diverting attention away to rising tensions in Kosovo and pressure from the West. They also promised different groups different things, such as financial support for students who want to buy flats, as well as free public transportation in Belgrade. Usually this has worked but not this time. More groups, such as farmers, are supporting the students and pupils. The government is claiming that a few dismissals of unpopular politicians and the partial public release of documentation fulfils the protesters' requests. The president is accusing students that they want to overthrow the current government, signalling that a new election could be a way out of the protests. But people in Serbia do not want new elections as they know that in the current circumstances with the regime’s control over society and the media the result will be the same. They want truth and justice, the rule of law and independent institutions. The government still hopes that the upcoming holidays and aggressive actions will lead to the pacification of the movement. They hope especially that EU officials will stay silent on what is happening in Serbia as they are afraid of any destabilization in the country. It is hard to predict how the situation will evolve but the protests revealed the huge scale of social discontent. They have also created new networks of cooperation and patterns of political engagement, united the people demanding change. The regime will never again be as strong as it once was before.

Marta Szpala is a senior fellow at the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) in Warsaw and a PhD candidate at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Science.

Public task financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland within the grant competition “Public Diplomacy 2024 – 2025 – the European dimension and countering disinformation”.

The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the official positions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.