Serbia's Geopolitical Balancing Act

As they say in the Economist: "Serbia is at a crossroads..."

Anti-corruption protests after the collapse of the station roof in Novi Sad have not gone away, now many months after the event. The country's leader, President Vučić, is under pressure as never before, after 13 years in power. He has offered 'televised dialogues': his opponents have declined. The standoff continues.

Meanwhile, in the tiny breakaway relic of the Bosnian War, Republika Srpska, the crossroads has come to a fork.

In February 2025, the President of the RS region of Bosnia, Milorad Dodik, was stripped of his office, for planning to hold an independence referendum to break away from Bosnia. He was handed a one-year prison sentence plus a six-year political ban. Christian Schmidt, Bosnia’s High Representative, froze budgetary support for RS ruling parties after attempts to arrest Dodik were thwarted by Republika Srpska police.

Two concurrent crises, oddly twinned: as we all know, when Serbia goes off, the world needs to stand well back.

Miša Đurković is a Principal Research Fellow and Director at the Institute of European Studies in Belgrade. This week, he joins us to unpack the dense politics of this geopolitical pocket rocket.