What European students can learn from their Serbian peers

In Serbia, a nationwide student movement shook Aleksandar Vučić’s government and dealt it an unprecedented electoral blow after more than a decade in which opposition parties had failed to do so. The protests were triggered by the deaths of 16 people in the 2024 collapse of a canopy at a renovated train station, but also reflected anger over corruption, precarity and poor job prospects. For almost two years, students built an independent political alternative, aligned neither with Serbian parties nor with the major powers dealing with the country: Russia, China, the European Union and the United States.