Serbia

Instead of the traditional boisterous street partying on New Year's Eve, tens of thousands of protesters led by university students gathered overnight in Belgrade and other Serbian cities to demand political reforms and justice in the Balkan country.

Serbian lawmakers have begun deliberating a bill submitted to parliament that would establish a "foreign agents" registry, a move that may alienate Serbia from its EU ambitions. … "This draft law poses a serious and direct threat to civil society organizations, jeopardizing their role in safeguarding democratic values, human rights, and European integration," the EU's Economic and Social Committee said in a statement.

[…] The [Balkan Free Media Initiative] BFMI report, ‘The Invisible Hand of Media Censorship in the Balkans’, says that across southeast Europe, the news media is in a state of transition and turmoil. … In Serbia, the report says, the media situation is particularly concerning, due to its influence on other Serbian-speaking communities in the Balkans, including Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Belarus and Serbia have signed a cooperation agreement on fighting organized and hi-tech crime as well as on the joint training of police, special forces, and counterterrorism units, Serbia's government said on October 30. 

French President Emmanuel Macron starts a landmark visit to Serbia on August 29 during which he is expected to tackle Belgrade's progress toward integration into the European Union, the sale of French Rafale war aircraft to Belgrade, and cooperation in the field of artificial intelligence.

EU officials on August 20 again firmly rejected Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic's claim that Western countries were behind recent protests against his government's lithium mining plans.

[…] The warning came after retired U.S. General Wesley Clark, the former NATO supreme allied commander in Europe, recently cautioned that Russia, which maintains close ties with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, is using Belgrade as a proxy to sow discord in the region.

Serbia’s ruling nationalist party claimed victory in the capital Belgrade on Sunday (2 June) in a rerun of local elections, nearly six months after allegations of fraud in a previous poll sparked weeks of protests.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Belgrade on Tuesday (7 May) has raised eyebrows at a time when Serbia’s President Aleksander Vučić has continued to resist increasing pressure to align foreign policy with the West, in particular the EU. … Beijing has become Belgrade’s second-largest trading partner, and by 2021, Chinese imports into Serbia were worth €3.6 billion (up 26.9% in 2020), even though the EU still accounts for 60% of the country’s trade.

Serbian Prime Minister-designate Milos Vucevic announced on Tuesday that Aleksandar Vulin, the US-sanctioned, pro-Russian former head of Serbia’s Security Information Agency, will be one of the deputy prime ministers in his new cabinet.