Belgrade's political ground is shifting — and the tremors reach well beyond Serbia's borders. A change of government in the country could reinvigorate the EU membership prospects of all Western Balkan countries, analysts at the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel argue. Central to the new political constellation is the Student List, which has framed EU integration not merely as a rule-of-law obligation but as an economic essential.
The economic case is blunt. The EU is Serbia's largest trading partner, absorbing roughly two-thirds of the country's exports. For Serbia's industrial base — parts makers, suppliers and logistics operators wired into European automotive chains — every line written in Brussels becomes a matter of commercial survival. And Brussels is currently writing a very consequential one.
The EU's 'Made in Europe' push has unnerved global auto suppliers by tying support to where vehicles and their components are built. Cars imported from Japan would not qualify for EU subsidies, while models built in France, Portugal and Eastern Europe would benefit only if enough of their parts come from Europe. Tommaso Pardi, director of the international automotive research network GERPISA and senior researcher at France's CNRS, notes that the 70% target is 'remarkably generous' — yet even a generous threshold redraws supply chains when the price of missing it is exclusion.
