00:00And we can move on now to Serbia, where grassroots student-led movements could actually shake up Serbia's political landscape.
00:06After two years of protest, the students are running under the student list in this weekend's snap parliamentary elections,
00:12with the aim of putting an end to 14 years of Aleksandar Vucic.
00:16For analysis, I'm joined here on set now by Berta López-Dominic from the European Policy Centre.
00:21Good morning. So tell us what's at stake in these elections that are being very closely watched by Brussels.
00:26Good morning. Thank you for having me. And these elections have been framed as a referendum for the future of
00:32Serbia
00:32and for the future of the existing regime of the Serbian Progressive Party, which has been in power since 2012.
00:40On the one hand, we have the SNS, which is running with Vucic, who was the president recently,
00:45and he resigned in order to be able to run for the parliamentary election.
00:50And on the other hand, we have the student list, which is the result of this movement that has been
00:56created in these two years of protests.
00:59They've managed to gather huge supports across the country with a very simple programme,
01:02which is basically restoring democratic institutions.
01:05And then on the other hand, tackling specific material demands such as housing, health, labour, etc.
01:12And we saw the pictures last night from Belgrade.
01:14I mean, astonishing how many people they've managed to bring together.
01:17But the question, of course, we're all asking, could they actually topple and oust a leader who's been in power
01:23for over 14 years?
01:24Indeed, like in these past two years, we've seen the biggest, the largest protests in Serbia since, like in this
01:29century.
01:31Of course, whether they will manage to topple Vucic or not, we will not know until next week when we
01:37have the results.
01:38But what is true is that it's the first time in 14 years that an alternative to Vucic has real
01:46options.
01:48For now, all opinion polls predict a very tight result.
01:52Like there are some that give a slighter margin of victory for the students.
01:55There are some that give a slight margin of victory for SNS.
01:58But all of them are very tight.
01:59And participation is expected to be very high.
02:02And what ticket are they running on, the students?
02:04What issues are they putting out there?
02:05So, as I was mentioning, basically, they have issued an 11 points programme, which is based on restoring democratic institutions.
02:16So they talk about public procurement and also the judiciary, independence of the police.
02:20And then on the other hand, they also address issues that are important for the entire, like the entirety of
02:25the, that can appeal to the general population,
02:27such as housing, access to health, access to education, better labour conditions and so on.
02:34And meanwhile, Berta, just one final question.
02:37Serbia's path towards the European Union is slightly on hold for now.
02:40Yeah, Serbia's EU path has been on hold since 2021.
02:45Since then, there has been no progress in Serbia's EU path.
02:49And this has been mainly due to the lack of progress in the fundamentals in Cluster 1,
02:54which is related to democratic institutions, rule of law, public procurement, public administration.
03:00And, in fact, Serbia, despite meeting some of the technical conditions for making progress,
03:05since there's no progress, and there has even been backsliding in these fundamental issues,
03:10Serbia's EU path has been kept on hold.
03:12And the students, despite they have not declared themselves explicitly as pro-EU,
03:17and, in fact, they've put the Serbia's EU future as something to be decided in the future,
03:22where their demands and what they are advocating for align with what the EU has been demanding of Serbia.
03:29Okay, EU enlargement.
03:29A fascinating topic that we'll dive into at our EU Enlargement Summit taking place on the 3rd of November.
03:34Berta, thank you so much.
03:35Thank you so much.
03:35For joining us.
03:37Berta, thank you so much.
03:38Thank you so much.
03:38Thank you so much.
03:38Thank you so much.
03:38Thank you so much.
03:38Thank you so much.
03:39Thank you so much.
