After Serbia’s Election, Foreign Policy Takes a Back Seat, and That’s OK

After Serbia’s Election, Foreign Policy Takes a Back Seat, and That’s OK | International Crisis Group

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After Serbia’s Election, Foreign Policy Takes a Back Seat, and That’s OK

After Serbia’s Election, Foreign Policy Takes a Back Seat, and That’s OK

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**Analyst's Notebook** / Europe 29 October 2026 **2 minutes**

After Serbia’s Election, Foreign Policy Takes a Back Seat, and That’s OK

*Crisis Group expert Marko Prelec reflects on the foreign policy implications of Serbia’s recent elections*

Serbia’s election on Sunday 25 October was unprecedented: a non-partisan movement led by university students and their professors toppled an incumbent with a well-oiled patronage machine. The students published a mainly common-sense plan of action heavily focused on cleaning up the state after a decade or more of capture by the outgoing party. Foreign policy statements have, however, made some of Serbia’s neighbours nervous.

Start with Kosovo, which Belgrade has long claimed as its own, blocked from UN membership, and sought to manipulate through support for the Kosovo Serb minority. The student movement issued a memorandum in May, calling Kosovo an “inalienable and integral part of the Republic of Serbia” but leavening this by insisting on the need to work “exclusively within the complex currents of the international community”. The plan uses very similar language.

The idea that Kosovo is Serbian is a longstanding consensus position in Serbian society, but the