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Shkruar nga Pamfleti
The real decline in trust is not among young people, but among the 50-60 year old age group, which had high expectations for European integration after 2000, but became disappointed over time...
If a referendum on Serbia's accession to the European Union were held next week, the pro-EU option would win by a very narrow margin, according to a public opinion poll published by the Savremena Politika portal.
The poll shows that 35.8 percent of respondents would vote in favor of EU membership, while 33 percent would vote against it. Meanwhile, 22.4 percent of citizens remain undecided and 8.8 percent say they would not participate in the referendum at all.
Despite the slight advantage for the pro-EU camp, the poll confirms that the long-term decline in support for EU membership in Serbia continues.
According to data from Serbia's Ministry of European Integration, public support for EU membership was nearly 70 percent about 15 years ago and remained above 50 percent for many years, Danas reports.
-Clear generational division
The results reveal a marked generational divide. Citizens under the age of 50 are more likely to support EU membership, while opposition is stronger among older generations.
The lowest level of support, just 20.5 percent, was recorded among respondents aged over 70. In contrast, young people aged 18-29 show the lowest level of opposition to the EU - just 18.7 percent - while 41.9 percent of them would vote in favour of membership. However, almost a third of young respondents remain undecided.
Bojana Selakovic, Coordinator of the National Convention for the EU, emphasizes that these findings refute the claim that young people in Serbia are anti-European.
" What is often interpreted as an anti-EU stance is, in fact, a high level of indecision. Young people see the EU as a concrete instrument for life opportunities, mobility, education, the labor market and legal security, and not as an abstract idea ," Selakovic said.
According to her, the real decline in trust is not among young people, but among the 50-60 year old age group, which had high expectations for European integration after 2000, but became disappointed over time.
-Government and EU as key factors behind skepticism
Srđan Majstorović, President of the Board of the European Policy Centre (CEP), says that the results regarding youth support are encouraging, but warns that the negative trend will not be easy to reverse.
He argues that one of the main reasons is the systematic anti-EU discourse of the authorities in Serbia, despite the fact that the country receives more than 200 million euros each year in EU grants.
Majstorovic adds that media control, the creation of a fear-based narrative towards the West, and the EU's inconsistent policies towards the Serbian government have significantly contributed to the erosion of the EU's credibility in the eyes of Serbian citizens.
Selakovic notes that the fact that more than a fifth of citizens do not have a clear position on EU membership indicates a deep confusion and lack of reliable information.
" The European idea in Serbia has not been defeated, it has been politically neglected and left without credible leadership," she concluded.
The survey was conducted through telephone interviews between December 3 and 11, 2025, on a representative sample of 1,000 respondents.
-Serbia as a center of Russia's hybrid influence in the Balkans
Renowned American expert on diplomacy and conflict management, Edward P. Joseph, has stated that the Balkans are not a peripheral region, but a key center of Russia's hybrid war against the West.
" Ukraine is the kinetic dimension of the war. The Balkans is the hybrid dimension. And Serbia is the platform through which Russia exerts its influence in the region ," Joseph said.
According to him, Serbia's removal from Moscow's orbit would have a devastating effect on Russia's strategy in Southeast Europe.
“ Bringing Serbia into NATO would be like sinking the cruiser Moskva for Russia in the Balkans ,” Joseph said, comparing the strategic impact of such an action to the symbolic and military defeat that Russia suffered in the Black Sea.
He stressed that 96 percent of Chinese investments in the Balkans are concentrated in Serbia, while Russia uses Belgrade to block Kosovo and promote anti-NATO narratives.
Joseph argued that this assessment is not theoretical, but based on current political realities.
" Serbia is already under pressure because of Russian control over the energy company NIS. This pressure must be accelerated. Belgrade is being forced to disengage from Moscow ," he said.
He added that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is facing an internal political crisis and that such an offer coming from President Donald Trump, who enjoys popularity in Serbia, would carry great weight.
" A path to NATO proposed by Trump could not be ignored by Vucic ," Joseph said.
Serbia remains the only country in Europe that has not imposed sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, Serbia and Russia maintain close military-technical cooperation, and since 2016, when Serbia began modernizing its armed forces, Belgrade has continued to procure weapons from Russia, despite criticism from Brussels./ Adapted from “Pamphlet” by “The Geopost”
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