Vučić separates Serbia from the EU and pushes it into violence

While the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia is discussing the imminent accession of the countries of the region to the European Union, the President of Serbia chooses to travel to China, to a gathering of states that suppress freedom and democracy. In doing so, he sends a clear message that European integration is not his priority—authoritarian alliances are.

It is shameful and devastating that a president with a radical political legacy is persistently working to distance Serbia from the European Union. We saw this with particular clarity last night in Novi Sad, where hundreds of police officers and special units brutally beat citizens in front of the Faculty of Sport and Physical Education building, without provocation and simply because they were on the street.

This violence is not an incident—it is policy. It is the image of a government that treats its citizens as enemies and uses the police as an instrument of force.

Serbia must not be a country of police brutality and authoritarian alliances, but a free, democratic, and European state.