site.btaSerbia’s Ruling Progressive Party Invited to EPP Talks Over Criticism of President Aleksandar Vucic

Leaders of Serbia’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) have been invited on October 22 to a meeting with the European People’s Party (EPP) following criticism of President Aleksandar Vucic by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), SNS Chair and former prime minister Milos Vucevic told Serbian K1 TV.

This is not an official legal process for temporary suspension or expulsion from the EPP but rather a thorough and rapid internal review with clearly defined outcomes, according to a statement published on the EPP’s official website.

Vucic’s party has been an associate member of the EPP since 2016, as Serbia is an EU candidate country. Associate parties maintain close ties and share the values of the centre-right EPP but have limited voting rights.

The EPP is the largest political group in the European Parliament, uniting centre-right and conservative parties from across Europe.

The possibility of reviewing SNS’s membership in the EPP was announced on September 9 by Manfred Weber, chair of the party’s parliamentary group in the European Parliament. Weber said that “the EPP is not blind to events in Serbia,” referring to the months-long anti-government protests that followed the deaths of 16 people in 2024 when the canopy at the train station in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad collapsed.

On September 9, a debate on the anti-government protests in Serbia was held at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

Ahead of the debate, the leaders of the European Green Party called on EU leaders to consider additional funding for Serbia “due to the autocratic tendencies of its leader, Aleksandar Vucic.” The Greens also demanded a response from EU institutions regarding the Serbian authorities’ treatment of protestors and expressed outrage that the Serbian president had referred to some demonstrators present at the Novi Sad protest on September 5 as “European scum”.

During the Serbia debate, some MEPs agreed on the need to send a mission to Serbia to assess the situation on site.

Anti-government protests, led by students who block university faculties, have continued in Serbia since November 2024, following the deaths of 16 people in the collapse of the recently renovated train station canopy in Novi Sad. Protesters are demanding both criminal and political accountability for the tragedy.

Since May 2025, demonstrators have also been calling for early parliamentary elections. Over the summer, initially peaceful protests escalated into clashes with police, riots, and mass arrests.