Viewed retrospectively, the year behind us had two political halves. The political life of Serbia in the first seven months of 2025 was marked by massive student and civic protests, deep social divisions, and fierce clashes between opponents and supporters of the government. And when the mass protests began to subside, a heated foreign-policy autumn arrived, with a government already considerably weakened and delegitimized coming under intense pressure and blackmail from foreign actors. That the ultimate target of these pressures and demands is not the holders of power themselves, but the state of Serbia and the Serbian people as a whole, is evident from the content of the ultimatum-like conditions that accompany these pressures and threats.
“ONE-ON-ONE” WITH THE WESTERN GLOBALISTS
From the perspective of this annual balance of internal and external political developments, it turns out that the protests—regardless of the individual motives and expectations of their participants—objectively served as just one of the instruments of pressure on the government, from which Western actors, in the context of a major global confrontation whose most visible expression is the war in Ukraine, expect even greater compliance. At the same time, this government, even before the protests, had—through poor decision-making in both domestic and foreign policy—put itself in a position in which it now has almost no good alternative.
Over the previous years, the ruling SNS has increased Serbia’s economic, political, and security dependence on the European Union and NATO. The regime has simultaneously catered to the material-consumerist appetites of Serbian citizens, while its enormous corruption has generated growing discontent within the middle class. Under such circumstances, it is politically very risky for the SNS to refuse the ultimatum-like demands coming from Brussels, behind which stand both official London and the American “deep state.”
On the other hand, fulfilling these ultimatums—given the content of the Brussels demands—would inevitably lead to a drastic reduction, if not the complete elimination, of Russian and Chinese influence in Serbia. In such a scenario, the SNS regime, and especially its leader, would be completely deprived of room for maneuver, and there would be a dramatic drop in his geopolitical value. In short, Vučić would be left “one-on-one” with the Western globalists.
The fact that the regime, weakened from within and pressured and blackmailed from outside, has not reduced its appetite for holding on to power can only result in new concessions that are nationally damaging and potentially disastrous. The current government has shown time and again that it is ready to make any counter-concession to foreign actors, so long as they are willing to issue an order to their subordinate structures in Serbia to “stand down.” Perhaps Vučić’s most recent decision to dismantle “Ćaciland” indicates that such a “deal” has already been struck—or that this is the first step by the authorities in Belgrade toward securing one.
BRUSSELS ULTIMATUMS AND PENALTIES
What exactly do the Western globalists, acting through the supranational structures in Brussels, demand from the authorities in Belgrade?
If we set aside individual statements by EU officials, the phase of institutional external pressure on Serbia’s internally weakened government began in October with the adoption of a Resolution of the European Parliament. Through this legally non-binding act, Brussels sent a clear message to the Serbian leadership, specifying what it expects from them and what measures will follow if these demands are not fulfilled in the shortest possible time.
In the Resolution of the Members of the European Parliament, the authorities in Serbia were urged to fully and as soon as possible align the country’s foreign and security policy with that of the European Union. This primarily means Serbia’s accession to all packages of sanctions that the EU has so far imposed on the Russian state and a large number of its legal and natural persons. The Resolution also called on Serbian officials to “prevent Russian propaganda,” which is effectively an invitation to ban the operation of Russian-owned media in Serbia, as well as to suppress nationalist and anti-EU propaganda.
Regarding domestic policy, Brussels made it explicitly clear through its parliamentary Resolution that the current authorities in Belgrade will soon be required to hand over to Western globalists—and their local NGO and professional branches—complete control over the judiciary, security services, and the media. Such a transfer of sovereignty in these vitally important areas is precisely what lies behind the euphemisms about improving the “independence of the judiciary,” “public administration reform,” “a stronger role for civil society,” an “independent oversight mechanism” over the work of the police, and finally, the “transparent and pluralistic appointment of REM members.”
PRIORITY DEMANDS OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
According to the Resolution of the Members of the European Parliament, the opening of new negotiating chapters—and thus Serbia’s further progress in the EU integration process—will depend on the fulfillment of these political demands. The European Parliament also called on the European Commission to impose sanctions as a punitive measure on those individuals “responsible for serious violations of the law and human rights in Serbia.”
In addition, the authorities in Belgrade were warned that, should they fail to meet the above-listed demands, they may find themselves in a situation where the EU sends an ad hoc mission to conduct its own investigation and “assess on the ground the state of democracy, the ongoing protests, attacks on demonstrators, and repression directed at students, academics, teachers, and public-sector employees.”
The European Commission’s annual report on Serbia’s progress in the EU accession process for the year 2025 was, as expected, milder than the Resolution of the European Parliament—since the latter is a non-binding political act—but still significantly harsher than previous annual reports of the Commission. The European Commission’s priority demand in the 2025 Report concerns the complete harmonization of Serbia’s foreign and security policy with that of the European Union.
AMERICAN DEMANDS AND THE “SMUGGLED-IN” SECTION OF THE LAW
That the Western globalists conduct a highly coordinated policy toward the so-called Western Balkans became clear these days from the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025”, specifically its section titled the “Western Balkans Democracy and Prosperity Act” (beginning on p. 954), which repeats—in even harsher form—the previous EU ultimatums directed at Serbia.
Originally, this section was intended to be introduced as a separate law. However, that idea was abandoned, and the bicameral U.S. Congress instead adopted the “Western Balkans Democracy and Prosperity Act” as a “smuggled-in” part of the enormous “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025,” a document of more than three thousand pages. As Nebojša Malić noted, the “cunning globalists” ensured that Congress voted on the Act at the very end of the annual session—right before the Christmas recess.
The “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025,” and thus also its section on the so-called Western Balkans, was supported by a bipartisan Republican–Democratic majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The provisions of this Act—especially the one prohibiting any reduction of U.S. troop levels in Europe below 76,000, as well as the provision allocating $400 million in military assistance to the Kyiv regime (which is drastically less than the $14 billion allocated for 2024 in the same type of legislation)—make it clear that the FY2025 NDAA runs contrary to President Trump’s latest National Security Strategy. More precisely, through this Act the “deep state,” embodied in the bipartisan congressional majority, is attempting to completely neutralize the new Strategy by imposing numerous constraints and obligations on the Trump administration in matters of U.S. foreign and security policy.
RUSSIA, CHINA, THEN KOSOVO
The same tendency can be observed in the provisions relating to the so-called Western Balkans, because the Trump administration (the Secretary of Defense and the CIA Director) is obliged to submit, within 180 days from the law’s entry into force, a detailed report to the relevant Congressional committee on the measures undertaken in Serbia to suppress the “malign” influence of Russia and China. At the same time, the law stipulates that such a report must contain an itemized list of all legal and natural persons in Serbia who maintain any kind of contact with Russia and China.
Although this represents an explicit example of one state interfering in the internal affairs of another, the Government of Serbia did not consider it necessary to issue a protest note to the U.S. ambassador over the adoption of such a law. Moreover, U.S. interference in Serbia’s internal affairs does not end with identifying and suppressing Russian and Chinese influence networks. The law defines diversification in Serbia’s energy sector as being in the American national interest, just as Serbia’s accession to the EU (explicitly including the so-called Kosovo) and NATO is deemed to be in the American interest as well.
Judging by the provisions of this law, the United States will demand full implementation of the Agreement that Serbia concluded with the so-called Kosovo in February 2023 under EU mediation, as well as the implementation annex to that Agreement adopted in Ohrid the same year. Finally, the law foresees that in the process of the so-called normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina, the United States will require explicit mutual recognition.
If, on the one hand, we have such clearly formulated ultimatums from the Western “deep state,” and on the other hand a politically weak government in Serbia—extremely vulnerable to pressure and blackmail—along with an opposition that, in its overwhelming majority, competes with the government in demonstrating cooperation toward Brussels, it becomes obvious that Serbia faces a very bleak outlook in 2026 in political, security, and national terms.
The EU integration process has been undermining Serbia’s state sovereignty and territorial integrity for years, and it now threatens to force the Serbian nation, for the first time in its history, into military confrontation with the brotherly Russian people. Therefore, it seems that the moment has come—just minutes before midnight—to halt this disastrous march into a dead end by calling a referendum where the people would clearly express their will regarding Serbia’s path toward the EU.
