Between Expo 2027 and the EU capitals, Vucic is playing the election card
For the Serbian president, this is the seventh election since 2012. The aim is to put behind him the tensions that arose following the tragic incident in Novi Sad, which claimed 16 lives and led to an investigation into the use of funds linked to Chinese companies. The move could see the leader crowned as the new prime minister. Stability is supported by the industrial interests of European capitals and the local government’s ability to supply Ukraine with ammunition.
Key points
- Expo 2027: the centre of power
- Germany: the automotive industry’s raison d’état
- France: aerospace as a guarantee of political security
- Italia: manufacturing diplomacy and control of shipping routes
- United Kingdom: a balance between intelligence and financial containment
- Global arbitration: between ammunition in Kyiv and Beijing
- The post-election situation
When, on 1 November 2024, the monumental reinforced concrete canopy at the railway station in Novi Sad collapsed to the ground, claiming sixteen lives, the political trajectory of contemporary Serbia took an irreversible turn. That canopy, built in 1964 and only just returned to public use following a major redevelopment project entrusted to the Chinese state-owned consortium comprising China Railway International and China Communications Construction Company, did not merely claim human lives; it shattered the rhetorical framework upon which President Aleksandar Vučić had built over a decade of unchallenged hegemony: the myth of rapid, forceful and unquestionable infrastructure modernisation. In the weeks following the disaster, independent technical reports and journalistic investigations uncovered a chain of systemic omissions: the addition of heavy steel structures, glazing and ceramic cladding had been anchored to sixty-year-old metal tie rods, worn down by corrosion and never subjected to load testing. What turned the tragedy into an institutional crisis was the regime of contractual secrecy imposed by the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, which, by virtue of intergovernmental agreements with Beijing, had removed the technical appendices and supervision records from public scrutiny. The civil mobilisation, led by student groups and characterised by the slogan “Korupcija ubija” (“Corruption kills”), forced the resignation of the Minister for Construction Goran Vesić, the then Minister for Trade Tomislav Momirović and the acting director of Infrastruktura Železnice Srbije, Jelena Tanasković. In December 2024, the High Public Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad formally charged thirteen key figures with serious offences against public safety, whilst the High Court in Belgrade launched an investigation into alleged losses to the public purse amounting to approximately 115 million dollars.
The response was to resort to the tactic of dissolving Parliament early. By scheduling the general election for 25 October – the seventh time voters have been called to the polls since 2012 – Vucic did not back down, but pulled an institutional emergency brake. Dissolving the National Assembly disperses the wave of public outrage into the myriad strands of an asymmetrical electoral contest, freezes parliamentary committees of inquiry and paves the way for a long-planned constitutional manoeuvre: to allow Vucic, who is barred from standing for re-election as President of Serbia in 2027 due to the two-term limit imposed by Article 116 of the Constitution, to take the helm of the government as Prime Minister.
Expo 2027: the centre of power
What is at stake in the October vote is not the formal handover of seats, but the preservation of an economic framework that forms the backbone of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS): the major project of Expo 2027 and the national macro-plan ‘Leap into the Future’ (Skok u budućnost). Officially, the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Siniša Mali, puts the direct financial commitment for the Surčin exhibition site at 1.2 billion euros, earmarked for the exhibition halls, the water sports complex, the Zemun–Airport–Surčin rail link costing 140 million, and the residential district comprising 1,500 homes. Yet the actual scale of the resources mobilised by the regime tells a different story. The strategic framework announced by the Presidency mobilises €17.8 billion spread across 323 infrastructure projects nationwide: from the National Stadium in Surčin to the Morava and Fruška Gora motorway corridors, from the BIO4 Campus biotechnology hub to the high-speed rail line between Novi Sad and Subotica.
This flow of public funds is underpinned by a special legal framework. In November 2023, Parliament enacted the Lex Specialis on Expo 2027 (Official Gazette No. 92/2023), supplemented in February 2024 by the government regulation on special procurement (Official Gazette No. 8/2024). This regulatory framework entirely exempts works related to Expo from the ordinary provisions of the Public Procurement Act, delegating implementation to the state-owned parent company EXPO 2027 d.o.o. and a network of dedicated special purpose vehicles (SPVs). Under these rules, tenders do not need to be published on European channels; award criteria are determined on a discretionary basis by directors appointed by the ministry; and administrative appeals do not suspend the start of construction works. As repeatedly pointed out by the Fiscal Council of the Republic of Serbia (Fiskalni savet), financing this scale of works through sovereign debt at a time of high interest rates widens the deficit, inflates interest charges and crowds out current spending on education and healthcare. Yet, for the ruling class in Belgrade, continuity is a categorical imperative: losing control of the executive would mean handing over the entire chain of exceptional contracts to retrospective audits by the Court of Auditors.
The strategic fragmentation of European capitals
The extraordinary resilience of the Vucic system cannot, however, be explained by internal dynamics alone. It is the direct result of a multi-pronged foreign policy capable of capitalising on the weaknesses and divergent interests of the major Western governments. Whilst the EU institutions in Brussels denounce the deadlock in negotiations on the chapters concerning the rule of law and competition, individual European governments deal with Belgrade on the basis of purely bilateral criteria relating to trade and security.
