this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2025
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Serbia: Mass protests are destabilising President Aleksandar Vucic’s “à la carte” foreign policy. The EU should seize the moment to support democratic change and regional stability. (ecfr.eu)
submitted 1 month ago by Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org to c/europe@feddit.org
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This is an opinionated article by Engjellushe Morina, Senior Policy Fellow, and Angelica Vascotto, pan-European Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

This winter has seen Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic skating on dangerously thin ice. Mass student-led anticorruption protests have led to the resignation of the prime minister, Milos Vucevic, as well as several other members of his government. Last week, the president hinted that the turmoil could lead to a snap parliamentary election come spring.

But public anger and Vucic’s collapsing government are far from his only problems. Even before the protests, the president’s longstanding “à la carte” approach to foreign policy of hedging Serbia between the West and Russia (with a side order of China) seemed to be in trouble. Both the European Union and Russia have been pressing Belgrade to choose a side. Now, Vucic has found himself with very little international sympathy for his domestic woes—and very little room for manoeuvre.

This gives Europeans a key opportunity to help steer events towards stability and democratic progress while minimising the risk of regional spillover. To prevent prolonged instability and bring Serbia back on track, the EU should support civil society, address regional tensions, and reinforce Serbia’s European trajectory.

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[–] randomname@scribe.disroot.org 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The weaponisation works like this: someone promotes what many people consider a “balanced” opinion and then waits for someone like you to show up and throw a fit and demand a removal of this “vile propaganda”. If it actually gets removed that’s a win, because then they can appear as the reasonable victims of censorship in the view of their target audience. The next step is then to promote their own propaganda platform without this “vile censorship” where they can fully control the narrative towards the then captured audience.

This is a strange justification imo, because so you can never remove anything as they can always celebrated it as a win in the view of their target audience. If you argue that way, you may never remove anything. The bottom line is that @europe@feddit.org is supporting dictatorial propaganda, even if users like the one in question is openly threatening people in a way that perfectly echos Russian narratives.

@poVoq@slrpnk.net @federalreverse@feddit.org

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

No, outright hate speech and clear misinformation should be of course removed.

But topics that sound like common sense to a lot of people need to be countered with arguments (and some tollerance for differing opinions) not removal, as otherwise it is way too easy for the people on the other side to appear as the reasonable side that isn't suppressing differing opinions.

Have you been living under a rock the last couple of years? That's been basically the playbook of the populist right and the main reason for their recent success. They play that game of pretending to be victims very well.

[–] randomname@scribe.disroot.org 1 points 1 month ago

Have you been living under a rock the last couple of years?

That's a weird question, especially for a moderator and the obvious fact that I seem to be not the only one who 'has been living under a rock' ...

[–] Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 month ago

Have you been living under a rock the last couple of years? That’s been basically the playbook of the populist right and the main reason for their recent success. They play that game of pretending to be victims very well.

First, I think your explanation for the rise of the far right is hopelessly oversimplified to a degree that's its wrong. But whatever the truth is, there is no reason for being offensive.

@poVoq@slrpnk.net