Aleksandar Vučić and the current President of EPP Manfred Weber in 2019
Photo: Presidency of Serbia
Since the 2000s, Serbian political parties started joining the European party families. Some of them have since left these groups or were ejected. For those remaining, the membership has often played a role in election campaigns.
Currently, six parties running in the December parliamentary elections in Serbia have an official status in the European political parties. Several additional parties are candidates for membership or have informal ties, which have also been apparent during this campaign.
European People’s Party (EPP)
The ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), led until recently by Aleksandar Vučić and currently by Miloš Vučević, has been an associated member of EPP since 2016. The party has received support from EPP in recent years, even in the controversial 2020 parliamentary election boycotted by the majority of the opposition. Then president of the EPP and the returning Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk wished Vučić luck in that year’s election, which SNS won with 60% of the vote.
Given the context of the election, Tusk’s endorsement was criticised at the time by several actors, including opposition members.
Last year, such endorsements were absent. The decision of the Serbian Government not to impose sanctions on Russia, which launched an invasion of Ukraine in the middle of the election campaign, was commented unfavourably even by EPP members, including EP Rapporteur for Serbia Vladimír Bilčík.
Even before, however, there was an impression that SNS did not have as close of a relationship with EPP as some other parties in the region. For example, Aleksandar Vučić, as the leader of the party, did not attend the EPP Congress in Zagreb in 2019 nor the Congress in Rotterdam in 2022.
Meanwhile, SNS has maintained close cooperation with the Hungarian Fidesz, which left the EPP in 2021.
A party that has been important for SNS-Fidesz relationship is the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMSZ), the largest Hungarian-minority party in Serbia, also a member of EPP since 2007. Elvira Kovács, the party’s international secretary and the Vice President of the National Assembly of Serbia, has regularly attended recent EPP meetings, even after the exit of Fides, with which VMSZ has close cooperation.
Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), which was once the ruling party of Serbia, left EPP in 2012. The decision was a result of party rejecting EU membership of Serbia due its opposition to the normalization of relations with Kosovo. The party is now running as a member of the NADA coalition.
Party of European Socialists (PES)
Democratic Party (DS), a member of the Serbia Against Violence coalition, has been an associated member of PES since 2006. At the time of its entry, DS was in opposition, but it soon became a governing party until 2012. In the coming years, DS has received support from PES ahead of elections, but the party itself gradually lost support and suffered several splits.
This November, Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP), led by Dragan Đilas, became an observer member of PES. The decision was made during the party’s Congress in Malaga. SSP was founded by Đilas, who previously headed DS, in 2019. It is also a member of the Serbia Against Violence coalition.
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE)
Free Citizens Movement (PSG), member of the Serbia Against Violence coalition, became a full member of ALDE in December 2022. Earlier that year, party leader Pavle Grbović (then 28) received a rising star award by the European Liberal Forum, official ALDE foundation.
PSG, founded and originally led by Saša Janković following his presidential bid in 2017, established relations with ALDE even earlier. It received its support in the 2020 parliamentary election, when it failed to cross the threshold.
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was an original ALDE member from Serbia, but it was excluded in 2018 for not paying membership fee. LDP leader Čedomir Jovanović is running in the election, but the party itself did not submit a list. The party has been mostly inactive in recent years.
European Greens
Green-Left Front (ZLF), a party which evolved from the Do Not Let Belgrade Drown movement, applied for membership in European Greens in 2022, before it was registered as a party. In June 2023, its members participated in Vienna Congress of the European Greens. The same month, member of the party Jelena Jerinić said they expected the party to become a member at the next Congress.
Party Together (Zajedno), co-led by former mayor of the city of Šabac Nebojša Zelenović, has also expressed ambition to become a member of European Greens. However, there has been no information about its current application status. Zelenović participated in several recent events organised by the European Greens.
The parties have already established cooperation with the members of the European Greens, which issued a statement of support for their activities in 2021. Both parties are members of the Serbia Against Violence coalition.
European Conservatives and Reformists
In 2019, Enough is Enough (DJB) became a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists. The party was founded in 2014 as a technocratic libearal-leaning organisation, but it adopted more conservative and Eurosceptic stances in the following years.
The party was in parliament from 2016 to 2020, failing to cross the threshold since. It is now in a coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SDS) of the former President of Serbia Boris Tadić.
Informal ties
Members of the right-wing “National Rally” coalition met several times with the members of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the campaign. This included a visit of “Zavetnici” leader Milica Đurđević Stamenkovski to Bundestag, where she met with party leader Tino Chrupalla. “Zavetnici” and “Dveri”, however, are not members of the Identity and Democracy Party, which does not have non-EU parties among their members.
