Media and International Relations: Serbian Media Narrative on the EU in Light of the “Lithium Crisis” in Serbia

Abstract

In this article, the authors address the Serbian media narrative about the EU’s communication on lithium mining in Serbia. In an effort to answer the question of how this narrative can influence the positioning of the EU on Serbia as a candidate country for EU membership, the authors have made a research based on a quantitative–qualitative analysis of media coverage, drawing on a sample of 192 articles (N = 192) published by four Serbian online news portals (RTS, N1, B92, and Blic). The analysis leads to two main conclusions: (1) It indicates an inversion in the general approach to foreign policy orientation across the analyzed media platforms. The customary discourses on Serbia’s foreign policy trajectory temporarily diverged from established patterns—specifically, the fervently pro-Western orientation characteristic of anti-government platforms and the ostensibly West-sceptical orientation typical of pro-government media. This reinforces the argument that the primary structuring line of media discourse in Serbia lies in the division between pro-regime and anti-regime orientations. (2) Media repositioning has exerted a pronounced negative effect on pro-European segments of the Serbian public, reactivating the thesis of “stabilocracy”, conceptualized as the dynamic relationship between authoritarian regimes in the Balkans and their external supporters. According to the authors, the EU’s inability to anticipate the drastic negative shift in public sentiment toward it—particularly among those segments of Serbian society that had been most supportive—or, alternatively, its decision to continue pursuing its own economic interests despite such awareness, underscores the profound flaws in the political communication it employed in this case.

1. Introduction

In the context of ongoing reconfigurations in international relations, the question of the European Union’s geopolitical positioning is of particular importance for countries that are economically and/or politically tied to it. This is especially true for the states of Southeast Europe, which have made political commitments to pursue EU membership, while their territories simultaneously function as arenas of geopolitical rivalry among the major powers (Jaćimović et al., 2023). In Serbia, as a territorially central country of the Balkan Peninsula, this rivalry has long constituted a kind of intellectual constant, articulated through the symbolic opposition between Russia and the West—represented by the EU—as key elements of collective identity (Aтлaгић, 2020, p. 90). These identity dynamics shape the ways in which questions of Serbia’s future development are addressed, including the pursuit of prosperity as a fundamental social value.1 Building on this, the Serbian authorities have openly expressed support for the EU’s initiative on lithium exploitation in Serbia, which, in their view, would contribute to the growth of Serbia’s GDP and improve the living standards of its citizens (Stefanović et al., 2023; Glas Amerike, 2023). According to EU projections, such exploitation, framed within its sustainable development policy, would enhance the competitiveness of the European—and particularly the German—automobile industry in the global market (Danas, 2024a). Yet, the initiative was contested on environmental grounds by parts of the public and opposition parties, triggering a political crisis in Serbia. This crisis reached its peak in July 2024 during the Critical Raw Materials Summit, when a Memorandum of Understanding on a strategic partnership between Serbia and the European Union in the field of sustainable raw materials, battery value chains, and electric vehicles was signed.2 The mass protests that took place at that time were politically articulated through a proposal by the opposition in parliament to amend the Law on Mining and Geological Exploration (Cлyжбeни глacник PC, 2021) with a ban on the mining of lithium and boron. The proposal was rejected, as deputies from the governing majority voted against it. While the issue has not been at the forefront of public debate since then, public resistance to the project shows no signs of declining (European Western Balkans, 2025). Nevertheless, in early June 2025 the EU decided to include the Serbian lithium mining project on its list of strategic projects (European Commission, 2025).

Public opposition in Serbia to the EU’s lithium mining initiative diminished in the autumn of 2024, coinciding with the country’s most serious political crisis since the fall of Milošević in 2000. The crisis was triggered by the collapse of a canopy at the Novi Sad railway station on 1 November 2024, which killed sixteen people. Their deaths became the catalyst for mass protests by students and citizens who initially demanded accountability for the tragedy and an investigation into possible corruption in the station’s reconstruction, but soon broadened their demands to include wider political change, including the calling of parliamentary elections. The government’s refusal to call elections, and its interpretation of the protests as an attempted “color revolution3” ensured that demonstrations continued and were still ongoing at the time of writing. These protests absorbed virtually all other significant expressions of public dissatisfaction in Serbia, which is why the decline of visible opposition to the lithium mining initiative should be understood within this broader context. Anti-lithium protests simply merged with student protests in Serbia and formed a component of it.4

Public dissatisfaction in Serbia was not only directed against the government but also extended to the EU. The media in Serbia identified this dissatisfaction first on a symbolic level—through the absence of EU iconography during student protests. (Danas, 2024b; Aljazeera, 2025; BBC, 2025c). The debate that then developed, based on the fundamental question—Why is support for the European Union declining in Serbia (BBC, 2025c)—pointed to several factors; from the actions of the Serbian government’s propaganda, pro-Russian propaganda, Brussels’ mistakes (Danas, 2025), to the fact that the initiative on lithium mining in Serbia, after all, is a strategic move undertaken by the EU within the framework of its own sustainable development policy (Paul et al., 2024; BBC, 2025b). This debate pointed to the complex political view of the world of Serbian citizens.

As Lippmann (1997) observed long ago, worldviews are the foundation of political perception, and in contemporary political life they are shaped to a significant extent by mass media (Lou, 2013, pp. 171–174). Of course, the EU and the media in Serbia are not the only factors that may have influenced the formation and persistence of such views. Nevertheless, based on the above, the EU’s role is evident with regard to certain aspects of Serbia’s current political situation. What role does the second factor—the Serbian media—play in shaping public perceptions of the EU? To address this question, we examined media coverage of the Serbia–EU Summit, focusing on the protests against the Serbian government that emerged during and after the event. These protests subsequently escalated into broader and more intense demonstrations that portrayed the EU as a supporter of an authoritarian regime. This framing came into sharp focus during the lithium mining protests, when some media adopted an unusually critical tone toward the EU.5 In an effort to consider this issue within the framework of the theoretical discussion about the role of the media in international relations, according to which, “those formulating and implementing foreign policies can generally assume that their mass citizenries will be almost completely reliant on the media…” (Lou, 2013, p. 230). For this reason, in the following chapters, we will draw the readers’ attention to two topics—the relations between Serbia and the EU and the basic characteristics of political communication in Serbia.

2. Serbia’s Foreign Policy and the Role of the EU in It

Since the 1990s, academic and public debates have consistently linked Serbia’s domestic political order and the quality of its democracy to the country’s foreign policy orientation. Contemporary literature on regime characteristics and elements of the political system, and their effects on party, electoral, and media structures, has generally traced a trajectory in which Serbia’s regime has shifted over time—from competitive authoritarianism in the 1990s, to electoral democracy in the 2000s, and, over the past decade, back toward the features of a hybrid regime (Pavlović & Antonić, 2007; Joвaнoвић, 2008; Opлoвић, 2008; Byчићeвић, 2010; Vladisavljević, 2016, 2019; Atlagić & Vučićević, 2019).

The transition toward a democratic society is generally associated with the fall of Milošević in 2000 and the subsequent reorientation of Serbia’s foreign policy, when accession to the European Union was declared the country’s primary foreign policy objective. Since that time, Serbia has not adopted a formal foreign policy strategy, but its priorities can be discerned from programmatic documents issued by state institutions, parliamentary resolutions, political party platforms, and the speeches and statements of senior officials. The period from 2014 to 2024 is particularly significant in this regard. Domestically, these years were marked by the overwhelming dominance of the Serbian Progressive Party, whose leader, Aleksandar Vučić, held one of the two highest offices in the political system—either as prime minister or as president—throughout the decade. This concentration of power shaped the structure of the public sphere, which will be addressed in the following chapter. In foreign policy, Serbia confronted the challenge of preserving its territorial integrity after the secession of Kosovo, while at the same time pursuing two seemingly divergent goals: maintaining the pro-European orientation established after Milošević’s fall, and, on the other hand, accommodating a political climate in which, as Reid (2020, p. 120) notes, open pro-Russian orientation was becoming increasingly prevalent within Serbia’s political elite.

At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, when Serbian authorities were not yet facing strong criticism for their political proximity to the Russian Federation, they adopted a different metaphor to describe their foreign policy: the orientation based on “four pillars.” Alongside the EU and Russia, the remaining two “pillars” were China and the United States. The current Serbian leadership, in power continuously since 2012, has retained this framework. China’s role as a pillar reflects not only its economic strength and substantial investments in the Serbian economy, but also its support—as a permanent member of the UN Security Council—for Serbia’s opposition to Kosovo’s independence. The United States, by contrast, although deeply unpopular in Serbian public opinion6 because of its leading role in the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia, has been regarded as a global power with which Serbia must cultivate “the best possible relations,” as articulated in the prime minister’s 2020 policy platform.

In terms of value orientation, Serbia’s current foreign policy and pursuit of EU integration can be understood as an instrumental value—that is, as a means to achieve prosperity, regarded as the ultimate social value and overarching societal goal. During Milošević’s rule, this terminal value was instead tied to the defense of Serbian national and state interests: safeguarding the status of Serbs living in the successor states of the former Yugoslavia and protecting Serbia’s territorial integrity, including the prevention of Kosovo’s independence. EU accession was not publicly presented as a value in itself. After Milošević’s fall, successive governments treated EU accession as an instrumental value, but by the end of the first decade of the century the integration process was promoted so fervently that it came close to being portrayed as a value in its own right (Slavujević, 2017, pp. 282–285).

Following the change in government in the 2012 elections, this foreign policy course remained in place, though in a modified form. The justification for EU membership increasingly shifted toward emphasizing the practical benefits accession would bring. European integration came to be treated as a given, while official rhetoric underscored the EU’s importance for Serbia both to counter domestic Euroskeptic doubts about the Union’s sincerity and to deflect criticism that the government was only nominally committed to the “European path.” Such criticisms—especially acute in the context of recent geopolitical turbulence—have been voiced not only by foreign political actors but also by pro-European opposition forces within Serbia.7 In the most recent parliamentary elections in Serbia, its representatives won one-quarter of the vote, while the Euroskeptic opposition secured a total of 10 percent.8

3. Media and Mass Political Communication in Serbia

In the domestic political context, the current authorities are criticized for pursuing policies perceived as inconsistent with European values, particularly the lack of rule of law and the prevalence of unfair political competition. Political opponents point to their restricted access to public visibility, which reduces their electoral prospects—an assessment echoed by scholars of political communication (Maтић & Mиливojeвић, 2020). These criticisms also highlight the distinctive structure of Serbia’s public sphere, which contributes to the underrepresentation of political alternatives in the broader political arena.

In Serbia, as in several other post-communist societies (Maлинoвa, 2013), the public sphere that took shape in the 1990s was structured around a distinct center and periphery. During Milošević’s rule, the center was occupied by television, above all the state broadcaster, while the periphery was made up of a small number of local TV stations, radio outlets, and print media. This asymmetry produced two key effects. First, whether a discourse could become “popular” depended largely on its visibility within the center of the public sphere. Second, controlling the social agenda required little more than control over the dominant channels of mass communication. By contrast, the peripheral arenas of the public sphere were too few and too weak to exert meaningful influence. The regime’s communication strategy in the 1990s was therefore aimed at excluding from the center any discourse unfavorable to the authorities, using whatever means were available—legislative measures, financial pressures, or editorial control (Aтлaгић, 2019, p. 102).

Serbia’s orientation toward the EU, which began in the early 2000s, was most visible in the media sector. Reforms at the time included the adoption of laws based on European standards guaranteeing human rights in the field of information (Veljanovski, 2012, p. 128), the transformation of state television into a public service broadcaster, and the creation of a regulatory authority for electronic media. However, these reforms have not produced the intended outcome of balanced representation of political actors.

A short-lived period of more even media treatment of political parties ended with the return of polarization on the Serbian political scene shortly after Milošević’s fall (Matić, 2002, p. 239). Pro-European governments, embodied in the Democratic Party and then-President Boris Tadić, were accused of controlling the media (Radojković, 2011, p. 36). Similar accusations against the Serbian Progressive Party and Aleksandar Vučić recall patterns associated with the Milošević era (Slavujević, 2017, p. 20). As in Milošević’s time, opposition leaders continue to demand equal access to the center of the public sphere. Today, that center is still dominated by television—both the public broadcaster and commercial stations with national coverage. While the government retains control of this core, the mobilizational role once played by the public broadcaster has shifted to commercial television and the tabloid press (Maтић & Mиливojeвић, 2020, p. 351).9 In this sense, freedom of speech in Serbia cannot be said to be banned; rather, it has been relegated to the periphery of the public sphere (Atlagić & Vučićević, 2019). This periphery consists of a small number of cable television channels, weekly magazines, and online platforms competing with the government-controlled center. The internet, in particular, has become a new arena of contestation between government and opposition—an arena that did not exist under Milošević, since his regime lacked access to such information and communication technologies.

Considering the above, as well as the fact that some opposition media have been further marginalized as well10, social media served as the primary channel employed by environmental organizations to mobilize citizens for protests against the operations of Rio Tinto and lithium mining. Virality was leveraged as a critical protest resource (Išpanović, 2025). When it comes to the organization of short-term and dramatic events social networks play a significant mobilization role, but their limitations are significant in terms of turning initial interest into a consolidated form of activism (Vajdijanatan, 2018, p. 148). Both proved true during the protests against lithium mining in Serbia—the first in relation to the blockade of vital roads in Serbia and the second regarding the fact that the major protests against lithium mining were soon followed by a divergence in the positions of the key actors who had initially mobilized the public (Radio Slobodna Evropa, 2021).

4. Methodology and Research Design

The study relied on a mixed-method content analysis combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. The corpus was collected between 14 and 24 July 2024, covering a period of five days before the Critical Raw Materials Summit, the day of the Summit itself (19 July), and the five days following the event. The analysis is based on content from four Serbian online media outlets, selected to represent diverse ownership models, editorial policies, and audience reach within the media system of the Republic of Serbia (Gemius Audience, 2025). Based on the aforementioned criteria, the sample included:

• Radio Television of Serbia (RTS)—The public national broadcaster, legally mandated to report in accordance with the public interest. Despite this obligation, it is frequently criticized in various international and domestic media reports for favoring the ruling coalition (PTC, 2009; OSCE Mission to Serbia, 2022).
• N1 Info—An official CNN partner in Serbia, owned by the United Group. It operates as a cable news channel and portal characterized by an independent editorial policy that is predominantly critical of the Government. In relevant international reports and research, it is designated as the primary information source for the opposition-leaning electorate in the Republic of Serbia (OSCE Mission to Serbia, 2022; Milivojević, 2025).
• B92—A television station and online portal that served as a symbol of independent journalism until 2015 and its acquisition by the Antenna Group conglomerate. Since 2018, it has been owned by the Kopernikus group, which is close to the ruling party in the Republic of Serbia. Relevant research indicates that the dominant narrative in its reporting favors the authorities (OSCE Mission to Serbia, 2022; BIRN, 2023; Milivojević, 2025).
• Blic—Owned by the Swiss conglomerate Ringier. It is the most visited news portal in Serbia. Its editorial line is generally viewed as “catch-all” or commercially oriented. In its reporting, it balances between sensationalist content and mainstream political coverage without the strict political alignment comparable to that of N1 or B92 (Gemius Audience, 2025; BIRN, 2023; OSCE Mission to Serbia, 2022; Milivojević, 2025).

The sample for analysis was obtained through Naslovi.net, a specialized Serbian news aggregator. This platform allows users to search all articles published on the portals included in its database, while also sorting them by category and ranking using its own algorithm. For the purposes of this study, we searched the selected portals within the defined timeframe using the following keywords: summit, critical raw materials, raw materials, lithium, EU, Serbia, and Germany. In total, this process yielded 192 articles (N = 192): 17 from RTS, 108 from N1, 38 from B92, and 29 from Blic. To operationalize the research, a coding sheet with 17 categories was developed to enable a comprehensive assessment of the research question. The coded data were then entered into the statistical software SPSS, V25/Version25, which was used to construct the database for subsequent analysis.

5. Results of the Study

5.1. Quantitative Findings

The results of our content analysis indicate that Serbian media covered the Critical Raw Materials Summit—its announcement, the event itself, and its outcomes—according to distinct reporting patterns. These differences emerged across three dimensions: the role of subjects in communication (those expressing views), the objects of communication (those being discussed), and the public interests emphasized in reporting. In line with our research question, particular attention was devoted to the EU as an object of communication. To examine this, we applied a Chi-square test, which demonstrated a statistically significant association between the media outlet and the way in which it framed the European Union or its member states when reporting on lithium mining in Serbia.11

On the portals of the public national broadcaster RTS, the pro-government outlet B92, and Blic, reporting on the European Union was dominated by articles with a distinctly positive or neutral orientation. By contrast, on the online portal of N1—a channel critical of the Serbian authorities—the coverage was more balanced, though with a notably higher share of articles adopting a critical stance toward the EU (see Table 1). According to our analysis, nearly 40 percent of N1’s articles conveyed a critical perspective on the EU as an actor in political communication. This finding will be given special attention in the conclusion of the study.

Table 1. Value Orientation toward the EU in Serbian Media.

		Value Orientation Toward the EU				Total
		Positive	Critical	Neutral	Not Applicable
Media Outlet	RTS	8 (4.2%)	1 (0.5%)	1 (0.5%)	7 (3.6%)	17 (8.9%)
	N1	23 (12%)	43 (22.4%)	15 (7.8%)	27 (14.1%)	108 (56.3%)
	B92	21 (10.9%)	1 (0.5%)	1 (0.5%)	15 (7.8%)	38 (19.8%)
	Blic	15 (7.8%)	1 (0.5%)	4 (2.1%)	9 (4.7%)	29 (15.1%)
Total		67 (34.9%)	46 (24.0%)	21 (10.9%)	58 (30.2%)	192 (100%)
Test result		Pearson χ2 = 45.877; df = 9; p = 0.000

5.2. Qualitative Findings

While the statistical data reveals the general stance, a closer look at the narratives shows how these positions were constructed. The public national broadcaster (PTC) reported on the joint address delivered by the President of Serbia, the German Chancellor, and the Vice President of the European Commission following the signing of the Memorandum. In terms of values, the statements of EU representatives closely aligned with the principles of Serbian foreign policy outlined at the beginning of this paper, namely a commitment to Serbia’s European future, the economic prosperity of its citizens, and adherence to the highest environmental standards in lithium mining (PTC, 2024d). Beyond this joint address, the broadcaster highlighted additional statements from Serbian government representatives and EU officials, who dominated its coverage of the event. For example, it conveyed the Serbian government’s view that the Memorandum did not entail a “loss of sovereignty in decision-making concerning the mining of strategic raw materials,” but rather placed the project “within the framework of European standards and regulations, as well as within the context of advanced industrialization led by Germany” (PTC, 2024e).

Earlier reports on the planned visit of senior European officials reinforced these messages, presenting no divergence between their positions and those of the Serbian authorities. A statement from a German government spokesperson emphasized that “behind Chancellor Scholz’s visit to Belgrade lies the project of sustainable lithium mining in Serbia” and framed the initiative as part of “the further development of the European raw materials agenda and the rejection of certain raw materials” (PTC, 2024a).

On the day the agreement between Serbia and the EU was signed, the public national broadcaster also reported the views of opposition political forces in Serbia and environmental activists, who opposed the agreement on the grounds of concerns about future environmental conditions as well as violations of democratic standards and European values (PTC, 2024b). Beyond conveying these perspectives, however, this broadcaster did not engage in deeper critical discussion of the positions expressed by domestic social and political actors. Instead, the issue was problematized at the level of international politics through a question posed by a public broadcaster journalist to the Vice President of the European Commission, which linked the EU’s interest in lithium mining in Serbia to its broader effort to outcompete Chinese rivals (PTC, 2024c, 2024d).

In the pro-government outlet B92, unlike in the public national broadcaster, no dissenting perspectives—however mild—were presented against the positions of the Serbian authorities and the EU. The reporting instead underscored the alignment between the German chancellor and the Serbian president, framing it as a driver of Serbia’s accelerated economic development (B92, 2024c). Government representatives were quoted as saying that by signing the Memorandum, “Serbia has essentially become a member of the EU”—not through compliance with rules imposed by Brussels, but through an equal partnership grounded in Germany’s and the EU’s economic interests in Serbia (B92, 2024a). The outlet also highlighted statements from European officials, most notably then Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi, who welcomed the signing as a move that would “accelerate Serbia’s integration into the EU” and contribute to its economic growth (B92, 2024b). Absent from B92’s coverage, however, were the concerns that the EU itself regularly raises in relation to Serbia’s accession process, including the rule of law, institutional independence, the persistence of corruption, and alignment with EU foreign policy.

The news portal Blic also underscored the economic significance of the EU’s initiative for lithium mining in Serbia, though it situated the issue within a broader framework of international relations. Its coverage highlighted the Serbian president’s argument that prospective cooperation with high-tech EU companies in the electric vehicle sector positioned Serbia as an important actor on the European stage, rather than as a casualty of corporate interests. Blic further reported on an interview the president gave to the German newspaper Handelsblatt on the eve of the Critical Raw Materials Summit, in which he emphasized that Serbia accords “priority to European over Chinese automobile manufacturers.” Within this narrative, lithium mining was presented as a strategic foreign policy issue expected to secure Serbia a prosperous European future (Blic, 2024). As in other outlets, Blic’s reporting was dominated by the perspectives of Serbian and European officials.

In contrast to the media outlets analyzed in the previous section, the news portal N1—which is critical of the Serbian government—framed the event in a markedly different manner. In its coverage preceding the arrival of European officials in Serbia, N1 adopted a critical stance toward the EU’s decision to sign a memorandum on the exploitation of critical raw materials with Serbia (N1, 2024c). Central to its reporting was an effort to interpret the broader political background of the agreement through two questions of public relevance in Serbia: whether the EU, in its pursuit of raw materials, had neglected the principle of the rule of law in Serbia, and whether lithium mining was being imposed as a condition for Serbia’s accession to the EU. A second theme raised by N1 concerned environmental protection, presented as another dimension of the public interest. In addressing these questions, the outlet consulted a range of interlocutors—both Serbian and European—whose views varied from approval of the initiative to concern that, in the name of economic cooperation, the EU was effectively endorsing what was described as Serbia’s undemocratic regime under Aleksandar Vučić. Among the European voices highlighted was that of European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič, who expressed confidence that the initiative would accelerate Serbia’s integration into the EU while maintaining high environmental standards in the mining process (N1, 2024d). By contrast, the outlet also gave prominence to critical perspectives, such as that of university professor Florian Bieber, who argued that the EU was undermining its own foundational values and thereby devaluing the accession process (N1, 2024e). Finally, N1 situated the issue within the broader framework of international relations, framing lithium mining as part of the geopolitical rivalry between the EU and China (N1, 2024b).

6. Concluding Remarks

Building on the analysis presented above, two principal conclusions emerge: the first concerns the role of mass media as instruments of political communication in Serbia, and the second pertains to the European Union’s political communication, particularly its value orientation.

Do Serbian media open diverse topics and stimulate public debate on significant societal issues, and do they function as platforms through which a plurality of social actors can be represented? The findings of our content analysis, focused on the EU’s initiative for the extraction of rare metals in Serbia, suggest that the media only partially fulfill these democratic functions. Instead, the predominant role of pro-regime media is that of “manufacturers of consent”—participants in political communication who primarily advance government policy (Lou, 2013, p. 230). In this case, that policy was the extraction of lithium and boron under the “Jadar” project, framed in terms of its purported economic benefits and its assumed contribution to Serbia’s integration into the European Union.

At the same time, Serbian media outlets that generally advocate for anchoring Serbia to the West emerged as some of the sharpest critics of the government’s decision to endorse the EU initiative. Their role, therefore, may be more accurately understood as part of the broader “hegemonic struggle over power” (Lou, 2013, p. 237). Overall, the analysis indicates that Serbian media fulfill their nominal functions—acting as platforms for pluralist debate, reasoned exchange, and deliberation—only at a superficial and formal level. In practice, their primary function lies in either advancing or contesting specific policies, depending on the positions of their domestic political patrons.

The case that provided the framework for our media analysis in Serbia proved particularly fruitful, as it revealed a striking inversion in the general approach to foreign policy orientation across the analyzed media platforms. The value-laden positioning of the media toward the issue of lithium mining broadly reflected their long-standing alignment as either pro-government or anti-government outlets. Yet, a notable departure was observed: the customary discourses on Serbia’s foreign policy trajectory temporarily diverged from established patterns—specifically, the fervently pro-Western orientation characteristic of anti-government platforms and the ostensibly West-sceptical orientation typical of pro-government media.12

This repositioning appears to have exerted a pronounced influence on the liberal, civic, and pro-European segments of the Serbian public. Shaped by the worldview articulated by outlets such as N1, these audiences had long regarded the West (and the EU in particular) as a guarantor of protection and a counterbalance to the current regime. The episode reactivated within pro-European circles the familiar thesis of “stabilocracy”, conceptualized as the dynamic relationship between authoritarian regimes in the Balkans and their external supporters. In this formulation, authoritarian governments provide geopolitical stability to democratic actors (notably the EU and the United States) in exchange for political legitimacy and financial assistance (Börzel, 2015). The effect is the perpetuation of the status quo, the relegation of democratization to a secondary concern, and the erosion of public confidence in the EU as an agent of change—all of which strengthen anti-Western narratives.

In the Serbian case, Bieber (2020, pp. 31–88) argues that Vučić’s regime has become indispensable to the EU due to its role in sustaining dialogue with Kosovo, leading Brussels to downplay or overlook democratic backsliding, including the centralization of power, control of the media, and allegations of electoral malpractice. Simultaneously, Vučić deploys the rhetoric of pro-European reform as a strategy to obscure authoritarian practices. Alongside geopolitical considerations, economic interests also remain central for the EU—most notably the consistent implementation of neoliberal reforms aligned with its strategic priorities—even though reliance on “reliable” autocrats risks entrenching corruption and fostering long-term social discontent.

Although the European Union formally promotes democracy, the rule of law, and environmental standards as the foundations of the accession process, in practice its approach to the “Western Balkans” (including Serbia) often gravitates toward a model in which political stability is prioritized over normative commitments, largely for economic and geopolitical reasons. The lithium crisis in Serbia has laid bare this paradox in the EU’s communication strategy, particularly in the context of Germany’s economic ambitions and the perceived hypocrisy of the “green transition.” In Serbian public discourse, this has been interpreted to mean that while the EU enforces decarbonization in its member states, it simultaneously supports lithium mining in Serbia that threatens the fragile ecosystem of the Jadar River. This tension was exacerbated by the failure of EU actors to explain how the project would meet “EU environmental standards” or to involve local communities in dialogue that could have demonstrated sensitivity to their concerns. Such communicative shortcomings have produced profoundly negative effects on public trust, fostering the perception that the EU treats candidate countries not as equal partners, but as resource colonies. The lithium crisis has thus exposed a fundamental weakness of the EU—its inability to reconcile a rhetoric of values with a practice of interests. As a result, the Union’s moral authority has been eroded even among its supporters. No longer seen as a defender of environmental and democratic values, the EU is increasingly perceived as an economic exploiter. Most importantly, in the eyes of anti-government media, this repositioning has underscored the image of the EU as a supporter and partner of the current regime, from which it seeks to derive strategic advantage (see Table 2).

Table 2. Economic Interests Over Ecological and Democratic Standards.

Actor	Interest	Effect on Serbia
Germany	Securing lithium for electric vehicles	Pressure on the EU to support the regime
European Commission	Implementation of the ‘Green Deal’	Ignoring environmental protests in Serbia and potential ecological risks
Serbia (government)	Expected GDP growth through foreign investments	Suppressing criticism under the pretext of ‘progress’

The EU’s inability to anticipate the drastic negative shift in public sentiment toward it—particularly among those segments of Serbian society that had been most supportive—or, alternatively, its decision to continue pursuing its own economic interests despite such awareness, underscores the profound flaws in the political communication it employed in this case. In our view, this episode represents only the most transparent manifestation of a much longer-term process, one rooted in the structural inequality that characterizes the EU’s relationship with non-member states, and especially with those of the “Western Balkans.”

Viewed through the prism of postcolonial scholarship (Todorova, 1997; Hansen, 2006; Svilar, 2011), the EU consistently constructs the Balkans as the “Other”—not as an equal partner, but as a subject in need of intervention. Following Said’s (1978) notion of “Orientalism,” the region is portrayed as chaotic and backward, in need of being steered toward a higher stage of “civilization,” often through disciplining mechanisms such as conditionalities for accession. Svilar (2011, p. 130) argues that the policy of offering perpetual yet never fully attainable “European perspectives” rests on the assumption that as long as the Balkans remain something to be changed, corrected, and educated, there will always be a rationale for suppressing resistance to policies misaligned with EU interests.

Within this discursive framework, the Balkans are repeatedly represented as trapped in a civilizational lag with respect to modernization, democratization, and the development of human rights associated with “true Europe.” Thus, across successive Balkanist discourses, the region is depicted as part of Europe, but never fully European (Svilar, 2011, p.132). As Svilar (2011, p. 143) further notes, unlike the binary of West and East typically applied in relation to the “Orient,” the Balkans are more often positioned within a Center–Periphery opposition.

The EU’s communication on lithium mining reproduced precisely this logic: Serbia was cast as significant primarily because of its role as a source of critical raw materials, a position that ostensibly brought it one step closer to “real Europe,” albeit along a protracted and uncertain path toward economic and social “development.” Conditionality associated with accession to the “select club” of EU membership has long carried sensitive connotations in candidate countries—particularly in Serbia—due to its protracted duration, opaque and shifting criteria, and the absence of a clear endpoint. This sensitivity is further heightened by the unequivocal alignment of the EU’s most powerful member states with Kosovo, whose secession Serbia rejects as unconstitutional.

Against this backdrop, the EU’s strong interest in lithium extraction in Serbia was easily construed as economic exploitation and a potential ecological catastrophe, disingenuously presented as support for accelerating accession. The EU’s rhetoric that the project would “bring Serbia closer to Europe” failed to acknowledge its own economic and geostrategic interests—above all those of Germany—thereby reinforcing perceptions of lithium cooperation as an extension of a neocolonial relationship of domination. Unsurprisingly, anti-lithium protests in Serbia revealed the relevance of “neocolonialism as an important bridging concept because it can be interpreted within both right and left-wing narratives” (Stepanović, 2025, p. 758).

On the nominal right, opposition to the project was cast as a defense of the nation, with the EU depicted as eroding Serbian identity: first by disregarding the historical trauma of NATO’s 1999 bombing, and now by demanding the sacrifice of traditional agrarian life in areas designated for mining, alongside fears of irreversible environmental damage that could, via river networks, threaten much of the country. On the nominal left, critique focused on transnational patterns of economic exploitation and asymmetrical power relations that facilitate the transfer of wealth from periphery to center while displacing severe ecological risks in the opposite direction. These narratives were not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing, together producing a comprehensive rationale that mobilized significant segments of the Serbian public against foreign corporate mining in the Jadar valley.

An even more consequential failure of EU communication lay in its loss of credibility within media outlets that have traditionally been the most committed carriers of Balkanist discourse in Serbia—most notably N1. This outlet consistently frames Western societies as the normative benchmark, thereby encouraging what Todorova (2020) describes as a psychological identification of the “Orientalized” subject with an idealized Western identity. For segments of Serbia’s liberal civic public interpellated into this identity, the sudden wave of criticism directed at the EU was profoundly disorienting. It was perceived as a betrayal by their imagined role models: rather than championing the struggle for democracy—understood as opposition to a regime regarded as the embodiment of all that is undemocratic—the EU appeared to prioritize its geostrategic interests by further entrenching “stabilocracy.”