BELGRADE – In a statement for the European Western Balkans following a public debate “Youth and the EU” organised by the European Movement of Serbia, the President of the European Movement International, Guy Verhofstadt, said that he believed that the student movement can change the political situation in Serbia.
“In my opinion, like in many examples in the history of Europe, it is the student movement which can change that. It happened already in 1968 in Paris, it also happened in Ukraine because the Maidan movement was a student movement. I think it is only a strong student movement that can change something”, Verhofstadt said.
He added that this means that the student movement will have to come forward with a project and show the politicians from older generations that they know how to manage the future.
According to Verhofstadt, a former Prime Minister of Belgium and leader of the liberal group in the European Parliament, EU leaders fear that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is going in the direction of Moscow and then try to appease him.
“And the reality is that nothing is happening in terms of reforms that are needed to enter the EU. The European leadership does not have the courage to say that openly”, Verhofstadt said.
Following the public debate “Youth and the EU”, which took place on 19 May, the European Movement of Serbia awarded the students its annual Contribution to Europe Award.
President of the European Movement in Serbia Radomir Diklić, who presented the award, said that the energy and will of young people to change things is bringing a “renaissance” of the European idea in Serbia.
“The moment they decided to block the faculties, they shook the until then anaesthetized social space and opened the process of questioning the society that had been silent for too long. Their fight is not exclusively academic. It is civil, essential, European and above all moral,” said Diklić.
During the debate that preceded the award ceremony, it was pointed out that young people in Serbia often have an ambivalent position about the European Union, which is influenced by a long wait for membership and the narratives of EU blackmailing Serbia, which are often promoted by the regime.
“The young people see European values as their own, but the process of accession has lasted for as long as they can remember”, said Milica Borjanić, Secretary General of the National Youth Council of Serbia.