Student Protests, Videnovic: Russia Supports Vucic’s Government, China Seizes Every Corruption Opportunity in Serbia

Student protests in Serbia, which have been going on for months, are not orchestrated by external groups, but the result of a deep dissatisfaction with corruption and the lack of the rule of law under Vucic’s rule, says Serbian liberal politician and Belgrade University professor Ivan Videnovic.

In an interview with The Geopost, Videnovic emphasizes that the implementation of the law is the main demand of the students who are protesting, demanding responsibility for the collapse of the roof of a train station in Novi Sad, which left 15 people dead.

According to him, Russia supports Vucic’s government, which still refuses to fully align with the EU’s foreign policy. Meanwhile, he criticizes China for taking advantage of corruption opportunities in Serbia, acquiring property and wealth through secret and non-transparent deals.

He also talks about the influence of the current government of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, the possibilities of the opposition and the European Union’s stance on the political situation in Serbia.

“It is very clear that Russia is supporting the Vučić government. To what extent this support goes, it is difficult to say, but for the moment it fits the position of Vučić, who is still refusing to fully accommodate and fully align with the foreign policy of the European Union. China is exploiting corrupt opportunities to corruptly obtain certain jobs, even some ownership, some real estate, some mines, some land in Serbia, through these secret agreements, which I don’t know, are friendly, fraternal, this and that, but in the end, they are certainly non-transparent,” he says.

Full interview:

The Geopost: The protests in Serbia have persisted for months. Who do you think is behind them—are they grassroots movements, or is there a coordinated political or external influence at play?

Videnovic: I don’t think that there is any organized action, any organized group behind these protests, I really think that these protests have come out of the depth of the dissatisfaction of the student population with the rule of law in the country, so we need to know that these protests have very clear demands and they are about corruption, they are about the rule of law and they are about the implementation of the existing laws. Because we have all the laws that we need to have, we have all the legislation that we need to deal with cases such as the accident in Novi Sad on 1 November last year, to establish responsibility. The problem is that, in our country, the implementation of the law depends on the will of the executive. And what is, what is the key first demand of the student protests, is that the law is implemented, that it is implemented regardless of who the perpetrators are, what functions they hold, what their financial power is, that the law simply applies to everyone. In this sense, the essence of the protest is deeply European and deeply democratic in terms of the rule of law and equality before the law for all.

The Geopost: What are the main demands of the protestors, and why has the government struggled to address them?

Videnovic: The main demands are therefore to bring to justice those responsible for the collapse of the canopy, which is clearly corruption from start to finish. These are the main demands, so your question makes sense as to why the government is having trouble addressing these demands, because in fact, addressing these demands in full exposes the octopus of corruption that has completely shut Serbia out at the moment, exposes, because we have to bear in mind that it all starts with secret contracts between, in particular, intergovernmental contracts with China, and then you have a Chinese contractor who has been awarded a deal under this secret contract without a tender, and then this Chinese contractor does not even exist, but hires subcontractors who are, of course, close to the regime and to the Serbian Progressive Party, and then those companies, which very often do not have the proper references, do not have the proper knowledge and have this closeness to the ruling party, those companies get the contracts and carry them out the way they carry them out, which in the end led to this terrible accident, which, of course, could have been avoided, and so it simply did not happen for 60 years, this building has been standing for 60 years, it could have stood for another 60 years, but after the reconstruction, it crashed down. Why the government has a problem is because addressing the students’ demands reveals the corrupt octopus, so you know who did all the work, you know who gave the orders, you know who gave the permits, you know who opened the renovated station before the permit was issued, so you know everything, you just have to apply the law. Well, when the law is applied, then it gets to very high levels and to very high personalities, to ministerial level, and when you get to ministerial level and when you take him to court, then he will say that all of this was done in collusion with the supreme power in Serbia, which is, of course, in the hands of Aleksandar Vucic.

The Geopost: Aleksandar Vučić has maintained a strong grip on power for over a decade. Given the current political climate, do you see any real threat to his rule?

Videnovic: Yes, I think it is having a big impact on his government, I think these protests have in a way, to the core, exposed the nature of this government, and we can see that in the fact that he is now going back, he is now going back to defending himself. So, just as he came to power in 2012 and announced a fierce fight against corruption in the then system, he half-way carried out this fight, in fact, by arresting the main tycoon in the country, and then, of course, he had to release him when the judiciary had done its job, and the state even had to reimburse him for the expenses and the detention he was in. Just as he announced the fight against corruption in the media then, he is announcing it now. Which could mean that he is actually going to defend himself, defend his position, defend his reputation among the citizens and try to recover it, because the whole system of his government is very weakened in this case, and in a sense, all those levers that made up that network that was over Serbia, it is now in its 13th year here, all those levers have in a sense burst, and people are now very wary of investing in any kind of dealings with those companies that are labelled and that are known to be close to the government. So everything that made up this network is slowly starting to crumble, and it seems to me that he has been left alone in his defence, which he has been announcing very aggressively these days. He is left alone to defend his position, and maybe one of his important people will simply turn their back on them and say, you have taken advantage of your position, now we are going to, now we are going to go and defend just me, because that is what is important, and maybe you will have to go to jail.

The Geopost: What role do foreign actors—whether from the West, Russia, or China—play in sustaining or challenging Vučić’s rule?

Videnovic: It is difficult to say, so first of all it is very clear that Russia is supporting the Vucic government, to what extent that is, to what extent that support is going, it is difficult to say, but for the time being it suits them to Vucic’s position, which is still refusing to fully accommodate and to fully align itself with the foreign policy of the European Union. China is a user of corrupt opportunities to obtain, in a corrupt way, certain jobs and even certain ownership, ownership, some real estate, some mines, some land in Serbia, through these secret agreements which are, I do not know, friendly, fraternal, this and that, but in the end, they are certainly non-transparent. What can we say about the European Union? I do not think that the European Union has a clear position on the government of Aleksandar Vučić at the moment, but this position is known. In fact, it seems to me that, for the time being, the European Union sees no alternative to leaving a well-meaning dictator like Aleksandar Vucic, who is, after all, producing some results that are quite significant. We can see that the elections in the north of Kosovo two days ago went very well, the results are what they are, but what is very important in all this is that the elections were organised in a democratic way and that the people went to these elections in a very civilised way and voted for their representatives. Somehow, I always have the impression that Europe values actions more than words. However, for the European Union, sometimes it is the actions that are quite important, so it is not taking any significant position at the moment. I suppose the reason for the silence of the European Union is that it does not see an organised alternative to this government, or it is still not clear how to turn a student protest into an alternative government and a political result that would somehow lead to a change in the Vučić government. Students do not want to deal with opposition parties, they do not want to deal with any movement, not even with NGOs or with the government. And then there is an empty space, you don’t really know who could enter. The important thing here is that the authority of the Serbian Progressive Party has largely collapsed, that it is now relying solely on the figure of Aleksandar Vucic, who, as I told you a little while ago, is now defending himself and his position at all costs, forgetting all the other comrades and partners in his immediate environment. And in that sense, this government will last for some time, but it is seriously undermined.

The Geopost: Is opposition ready to take power in Serbia?

Videnovic: I don’t believe, I don’t see. The opposition in Serbia, how can I put it to you, is trapped in a box, which is actually a box of an opinion that was given, an opinion that was given perhaps 40 years ago, 40 years ago with the memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, with the actions of eminent academics, eminent thinkers of that time, which ultimately led to all those crises that we had at the end of the 20th century in the Balkans. This box that it is in, this box of opinions that it is in, is still such that the opposition, the opposition does not come out of it. The opposition does not have the power to put forward a clear alternative, a single but clear alternative to the prevailing opinion. This is something that our Liberal Group is trying to draw people’s attention to, to open up this subject. We managed to run on this topic a year ago, but we did not do well, because this is a completely new paradigm that we are offering for the citizens of Serbia to consider, which would break away from the concepts that were put forward 40 years ago and which have kept this country, or our country, in chains for all that time. These concepts concern, above all, Kosovo, relations with Kosovo, these concepts concern relations with Bosnia and Herzegovina, relations with Montenegro, relations with Europe, relations with NATO, relations with Russia and China, and so on, and so on. So, these are some regional relations that are, I say, put in a box that somebody has called the national interest, and nobody knows how or why, but the national interest is what it is, and there is no way out of it, not even the opposition can get out of it. Therefore, at this moment it does not look like the opposition is ready to take power, but I assume that a transitional government would be a good solution to prepare for free elections. A transitional government, especially now that the government of Milos Vucevic has fallen, I do not see what could, what benefit another government, a new Serbian Progressive Party government, would bring, would be exactly the same as Vučić’s. So these people from the opposition need to be involved in some way in the decision-making and in the preparation of free elections, which would take place somewhere, say, within a year, when the mandate of Aleksandar Vučić is slowly coming to an end, and could in some way bring about change in the country.

The Geopost: Many experts argue that Vučić uses the Serbian minority in Kosovo as a tool for his political agenda. How do you see this strategy?

Videnovic: Yes, what we have seen now in the north of Kosovo is that the citizens of the north still see his Serbian List as a kind of guarantor of security. It just means that the awareness has not yet matured among the people of northern Kosovo that they can, that they have the freedom, that they have the opportunity and the space to organise themselves politically and to represent their interests in the best possible way in the Kosovo Parliament. They are still clinging to Serbia’s somewhat protective attitude towards them. It is very clear that there is still work to be done on this, although it is not entirely certain, although I think that six different Serbian lists, or rather six groups, took part in these elections, it is not entirely clear whether these groups, to the extent that they offer an alternative policy, offer those groups that have again shown themselves to be strong enough to challenge the Serbian List. So far in this crisis, I have not seen Vučić using the citizens of northern Kosovo as a way out. I think he has a different agenda now, the current situation in Serbia suits him, to postpone what is urgent for him, which is to transform the ownership of the Serbian oil industry, NIS, which is 51% or 54% owned by Russia and has been under US Treasury sanctions since the end of February, so that it will not be possible to pay, it will not be possible to buy, it will not be possible to transport oil to the Serbian oil industry has a majority, or any Russian ownership in it. He still has not dealt with this problem, they have asked for a postponement and a solution to this problem, it is not certain, it is not certain whether the new administration will allow this postponement, it seems to me that I really do not see that they are inclined, I do not see the new administration making concessions in such situations, so it may be that we will be very soon, by the end of this month, we are going to find ourselves in a very serious problem which is now kind of being swept under the carpet because they are, because these mass student protests, which are the right thing to do, are the right idea, but again, I say to him as a known opportunist, they are giving him the space to distance himself from dealing with this pressing problem that Serbia is facing. I think that a transitional government must be elected whose task will be solely to establish responsibility, political and criminal responsibility, the government cannot take criminal responsibility, but political responsibility for the fall of the canopy, to hold new elections and to resolve the issue, this is urgent, the resolution of the issue of the Serbian oil industry cannot be postponed for any reason.

The Geopost: Does the West see the opposition in Serbia as an alternative and what should the opposition do to be an alternative to the West?

Videnovic: We see that the opposition parties do not have a clear, clear European agenda, apart from seeking help from Europe against the autocracy of Aleksandar Vučić. We see that there is no clear pro-European agenda among the opposition parties. First of all, they are made up of the fact that the opposition bloc is made up of parties that are fundamentally pro-European and very anti-European, that is to say, nationalist and anti-European parties. Directly pro-Russian, directly, you have a strong rise of direct Russian puppets both in the Serbian Parliament and in local parliaments throughout Serbia. So, in addition to the SNS, you have others, you have other movements that are openly pro-Russian. So what we call the civic or pro-European opposition is very timid in its pro-European narratives. It is primarily about meeting all the criteria for membership of the European Union immediately and quickly. They are concerned about joining NATO, there is no agreement on that, not that there is no agreement, but there is no statement on that at all, or rather, when they are confronted with that question, they very often come very close to the actually anti-European option, that is, the military neutrality that was established before this government, but it is basically an anti-European option with regard to Serbia and not only Serbia’s position, but Serbia’s position and the position of all the surrounding countries in the region, because, of course, both Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina and their relationship to NATO depend very much on Serbia’s relationship to NATO and, of course, it is clear to everybody that this is the only way, that this common collective security is the only way forward for all of us, and that any disagreements or conflicts that are still unresolved between us will be much better resolved if our armies are in the same alliance group. So then you have different issues of influence in Bosnia and Herzegovina and of influence in Montenegro, but especially when it comes to the question of Kosovo, then you have the obstacle of someone who calls himself a European putting red lines and saying that Kosovo independence is a red line that we cannot cross. This, I say, is the sequence, the box of opinions that was set up 40 years ago, from which not only the Serbian Government, but also the Serbian opposition, cannot escape. Therefore, I do not think that there is enough support from the European Union for this opposition. The European Union is supporting the opposition in Georgia, which is quite clearly pro-European, but what is missing is that the profile of the opposition is not visible, there is no clear European profile of the Serbian opposition, and therefore there is no support.

/ The Geopost