EU or Russia: How would Serbia vote in a referendum?

If a referendum on Serbia’s accession to the European Union were held next week, the pro-EU option would win by a very narrow margin, according to a public opinion poll published by the portal Savremena Politika.

The survey shows that 35.8 percent of respondents would vote in favor of EU membership, while 33 percent would vote against it. Meanwhile, 22.4 percent of citizens remain undecided, and 8.8 percent say they would not participate in the referendum at all.

Despite the slight advantage for the pro-EU camp, the poll confirms that the long-term decline in support for EU membership in Serbia continues.

According to data from Serbia’s Ministry of European Integration, public support for EU accession stood at nearly 70 percent about 15 years ago and remained above 50 percent for many years, reports Danas.

Clear generational divide

The results reveal a pronounced generational split. Citizens under the age of 50 are more inclined to support EU membership, while opposition is strongest among older generations.

The lowest level of support, just 20.5 percent, was recorded among respondents aged over 70. By contrast, young people aged 18–29 show the lowest level of opposition to the EU—only 18.7 percent—while 41.9 percent of them would vote in favor of accession. However, nearly one third of young respondents remain undecided.

Bojana Selaković, Coordinator of the National Convention on the EU, stresses that these findings refute the claim that young people in Serbia are anti-European.

“What is often interpreted as an anti-EU stance is, in fact, a high level of indecision. Young people view the EU as a concrete instrument for life opportunities—mobility, education, the labor market, and legal security—rather than as an abstract idea,” Selaković said.

According to her, the real decline in trust is not among the young, but among the 50–60 age group, which had high expectations for European integration after the year 2000 but grew disillusioned over time.

The government and the EU as key factors behind skepticism

Srđan Majstorović, President of the Board of the European Policy Centre (CEP), says the results regarding youth support are encouraging, but warns that the negative trend will not be easy to reverse.

He argues that one of the main reasons is the systematic anti-EU discourse of the authorities in Serbia, despite the fact that the country receives more than €200 million annually in EU grants.

Majstorović adds that media control, the creation of a fear-based narrative toward the West, and inconsistent EU policies toward the Serbian government have all significantly contributed to the erosion of the EU’s credibility in the eyes of Serbian citizens.

Selaković notes that the fact that more than one fifth of citizens have no clear position on EU membership points to deep confusion and a lack of reliable information.

“The European idea in Serbia has not been defeated—it has been politically neglected and left without credible leadership,” she concluded.

The survey was conducted via telephone interviews between 3 and 11 December 2025, on a representative sample of 1,000 respondents.

Serbia as a hub of Russia’s hybrid influence in the Balkans

Renowned American expert on diplomacy and conflict management Edward P. Joseph has stated that the Balkans are not a peripheral region, but a key hub of Russia’s hybrid war against the West.

“Ukraine is the kinetic dimension of the war. The Balkans are the hybrid dimension. And Serbia is the platform through which Russia exerts its influence in the region,” Joseph said.

According to him, Serbia’s departure from Moscow’s orbit would have a devastating effect on Russia’s strategy in Southeast Europe.

“Bringing Serbia into NATO would be like sinking the cruiser Moskva for Russia in the Balkans,” Joseph said, comparing the strategic impact of such a move to the symbolic and military loss suffered by Russia in the Black Sea.

He emphasized that 96 percent of Chinese investments in the Balkans are concentrated in Serbia, while Russia uses Belgrade to block Kosovo and fuel anti-NATO narratives.

Joseph argued that this assessment is not theoretical, but grounded in current political realities.

“Serbia is already under pressure due to Russian control over the NIS energy company. That pressure should be accelerated. Belgrade is being forced to disengage from Moscow,” he said.

He added that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is facing an internal political crisis, and that such an offer coming from President Donald Trump, who enjoys popularity in Serbia, would carry enormous weight.

“A pathway to NATO proposed by Trump could not be ignored by Vučić,” Joseph said.

Serbia remains the only country in Europe that has not imposed sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, Serbia and Russia maintain close military-technical cooperation, and since 2016—when Serbia began modernizing its armed forces—Belgrade has continued to procure weapons from Russia, despite criticism from Brussels. /TheGeoPost.