The EU-Balkans Roundup #1: Elections, War Memory and the EU’s Pull

Florian, why don't you kick us off?

Yeah.

Thanks a lot, Damir.

Yes.

So we had two major events in Serbia, the funeral of Ratko Mladić, which was a de facto state funeral, even if it wasn't called like that.

Six ministers were present, the son of the president, state honors, uh, and a speech by the patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

The EU was shocked, but it was a little bit kind of, I thought, even a bit funny that the EU was shocked because, you know, considering the historical revisionism we've been seeing in Serbia for years, it's hardly a surprise that this would have happened.

It's maybe an interesting question to see why Vučić put forth this state funeral, knowing that full well that it's gonna be quite confrontational, um, for the EU.

Is it...

Maybe it is to get some nationalist voters, because he could have also organized for a silent, you know, quiet funeral, you know, a family funeral or something like that.

But he chose this, and of course, it comes together with the elections.

On the 25th of October, he finally announced the elections.

Uh, we've been waiting for this for months.

He's been promising new dates all along.

Now it's for real.

He clearly thinks he can win these elections, otherwise he wouldn't have called them.

But he's also under time pressure because presidential elections are due in the spring, and he doesn't have a candidate.

He can't run himself.

So the parliamentary elections seem to be necessary.

But we have couple of interesting developments there.

I think I just wanna kind of underscore a few points which strike me as important.

First, the students managed to gather signatures in record speed.

People were standing in lines for hours.

So they've clearly been able to tap on the enthusiasm of the mass support of last year, even if the protests have died or quieted down in recent months.

So this shows a kind of re-energizing.