German Press: Vučić's Regime May Fall

AUTHOR:M.J. GDNUS

Instead of supporting the democratic movement in Serbia, the European Commission has turned its back on the protesters, the German press indicates. But it also assesses that Vučić's system "could quickly be shaken if citizens continue to protest".

The Serbian government is suppressing protests in the country with extreme violence. President Vučić is thus showing his true colors, believes Zilke Hane, a journalist for the news portal Tagesschau, as reported by Deutsche Welle.

"Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is showing his true colors these days. Last week, he sent masked thugs to a - so far peaceful - protest movement. And while party loyalists attacked the demonstrators with sticks and firecrackers, the police just stood by and did nothing. Beatings under police protection."

“Since then, the violence on the Serbian streets has escalated every night. Part of the protest movement has contributed to this. The offices of the ruling party, which until now were the target of egg-throwing, are now being demolished and set on fire. The police intervene – but they are not the only ones arresting them. Anyone who takes to the streets at night in Serbia to demonstrate against the government – peacefully or not – must expect to be arrested.”

“This civil society demands justice – for the victims of the accident in Novi Sad, where a sloppily renovated railway station canopy claimed 16 lives. Civil society also wants justice for the victims of police violence. It demands free elections and that the president has only the power that the constitution prescribes for him.”

“One could say: Serbian civil society demands what should be taken for granted in a democratic European country. After all, Serbia is a candidate for EU accession. But instead of supporting the democratic movement, the European Commission has turned its back on the demonstrators. Not a word of support from Brussels.”

“Europe wants to profit from Serbia’s economic strength, no matter how many corrupt hands are involved. That’s why the EU signed a pact with Serbia last year on lithium exploitation.”

“By pursuing its accession policy in this way, Europe is losing credibility and trampling on its own values. Aleksandar Vučić is showing his true colors – Europe should look carefully in that direction,” writes Zilke Hanne for Tagesschau, the news portal of the public service ARD.

Vučić “certainly has Putin’s blessing for any repression.”

And the Berlin-based Tagesseitung published a commentary by journalist Erich Ratfelder titled “Vučić’s regime may fall.” He began his article by stating that the meeting between Putin and Trump in Alaska “demonstrated the power of corrupt and irresponsible autocrats” to the entire world. Now, as the author writes, “hope is coming precisely from Serbia, the country that was the first to build a corrupt autocracy since the early 1990s,” and for him, this is “a trick of history.”

“Hope comes precisely from that small Balkan country that has not yet come to terms with its bloody history, but now, it seems, is seriously starting to deal with its evil spirits.”

Ratfelder writes that the events in Serbia show that Vučić’s autocratic system “can quickly be shaken if citizens continue to protest and do not allow themselves to be intimidated by the regime’s beating squads.”

Vučić “certainly has Putin’s blessing for any repression. The fact that the Russians actually control the Serbian army is just a footnote. As is the fact that Trump’s sons are ready to invest in Serbia with Vučić’s blessing. But for European and German politics, a pile of debris is being created: Berlin has certainly always supported Vučić,” writes, among other things, in a commentary in the Berlin-based Tagesseitung.