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Serbia's post-election questions turn to Moscow and the EU

Reporting from Belgrade's celebrations, Nick Thorpe explains how the student-led movement chose candidates, while its foreign policy remains unformed.

Channel: BBC News ·

United KingdomStory of October 27, 2026Trari Newsroom

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Joy and disbelief on Serbian streets as Vučić concedes election defeat | BBC News

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0:39Thorpe says many celebrating in Belgrade had not expected Vučić to concede.
2:40The student-led movement selected candidates democratically across five major universities.
5:01Serbia's energy dependence on Russia complicates its balancing of Moscow ties and EU ambitions, Thorpe explains.
7:31Thorpe describes broadly pro-European, anti-corruption values, but says the movement's specific foreign policy remains unformed.
9:41A law student calls the result a miracle and describes it as freedom.

Who governs after a movement that calls itself leaderless wins an election? And what happens to Serbia's relationships with Russia and the European Union? Those questions run through Nick Thorpe's live report for the United Kingdom's BBC News, delivered amid celebrations outside parliament in Belgrade.

The broadcaster reports that President Aleksandar Vučić and the ruling party have conceded defeat in snap parliamentary elections to the student-led movement. Around Thorpe, people wave flags, light flares and sing. Some chant "pobjeda," meaning victory. He says many had doubted both whether their movement could win and whether Vučić would accept defeat.

Asked who will lead, Thorpe explains that candidates were selected democratically across five major universities. The movement's lack of a single leader does not mean it entered the election without a process for choosing representatives.

Its international direction is less settled. Thorpe describes Serbia's energy dependence on Russia and Vučić's balancing of relations with Moscow against ambitions to join the EU. He characterizes the students' values as broadly pro-European, democratic and opposed to corruption, but says their specific foreign policy has yet to take shape. The report does not present the result as an announced break with Russia or an immediate route into the EU.

The election followed two years of protests triggered by the collapse of a railway-station canopy in Novi Sad. According to the broadcaster, the disaster killed 16 people and became a symbol of corruption and negligence. Preliminary election-commission figures indicated record turnout.

Near the end, the camera returns from questions of government and diplomacy to what the result means to one person in the crowd. An unnamed law student calls it a "miracle" and says: "I'm a student of law, and for me it's literally a freedom, literally a freedom."

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