Elmar Brok (CDU): Vucic appears to return to his roots, hurting Serbia and its EU prospects

“I know Vucic relatively well. I am stunned by the direction he is taking—or perhaps by the way he seems to be returning to his roots. He once told me that his heart is in Moscow, but his mind in Brussels. I no longer see the latter. This does not improve Serbia’s chances in the EU; on the contrary, it harms his own country,” Brok said at a CDU congress in Bonn.

It is worth recalling that the CDU, long led by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has been one of the strongest political allies of Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in the European Union.

Brok himself stated in 2020 that Serbia could be the next EU member state. Five years later, the situation appears to have shifted dramatically.

Serbia is currently facing a severe political crisis following months of protests triggered by the collapse of a canopy at the Novi Sad railway station, which killed 16 people.

Although the students who initiated the protests officially demanded snap elections, the government in Belgrade stubbornly refuses to meet their demands, while simultaneously intensifying repression against political dissenters.