There are tens of thousands of participants every weekend. Simple employees, small entrepreneurs and intellectuals, students, academics and retirees. Their movements are called "Justice for David!", "One in Five Million" or "Resist!". When they go out on the street, they shout: "Thieves!", "Resignation!" or "We are the state!"

"Activists in social networks call it" #BalkanSpring ": Protests in the Western Balkans: In Serbia, the Bosnian Republika Srpska, Montenegro and Albania are currently demonstrating regularly dissatisfied citizens against their corrupt and authoritarian rulers. Mostly on Saturdays, some for some weeks, some even for months.

Each case was triggered by individual cases that at first outraged a small public but soon turned into broad, general anger - about clientelism, corruption and organized crime at government level and a life of ever greater lack of prospects.

  • In Banja Luka, the capital of Republika Srpska in the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina , the civil rights movement "Justice for David" was created in April 2018 following the unexplained death of a 21-year-old. For months, it mobilized tens of thousands of people to protest against the corrupt, repressive regime of the Bosnian Serb nationalist Milorad Dodik.
  • In the non-Serb city of Krusevac in November 2018, the opposition politician Borko Stefanovic was brutally beaten and seriously injured. Since then, tens of thousands of people have been demonstrating against the authoritarian regime of President Aleksandar Vucic every Saturday in Serbia, under the slogan "One in five millions" nationwide.
  • In Albania , among other things, in December last year students began to demonstrate against tuition fees and miserable living conditions. In the meantime, the protests are generally directed against the nominal socialist government of Prime Minister Edi Rama and against their alleged ties to organized crime.
  • In Montenegro in January, a volatile businessman published a video about the payment of 100,000 euros bribe to the party of President Milo Djukanovic. He and his family have been ruling the country for nearly 30 years using mafia-like methods. The "envelope" affair has provoked in the country the biggest street protests in years, their motto: "resist!"

In recent years, the Western Balkans region has repeatedly experienced individual protest movements such as the "Bosnian Spring" 2014 or the "Colorful Revolution" in Macedonia in 2016. It is currently noticeable that people in the region are taking to the streets almost everywhere.

"For the first time in many years, there is a moment in the region where more and more people do not want to shut their eyes to the machinations of the ruling cliques," says political scientist and Western Balkan expert Vedran Dzihic from the University of Vienna on DER SPIEGEL.

The region varies between exodus and rebellion

It is still difficult to predict whether the protests would lead to changes, said Dzihic. At any rate, the key element is citizens' desire for more democracy and their attitude, that they can no longer be intimidated, "says Dzihic.

Two decades after the end of the wars in Yugoslavia, the region fluctuates between exodus and rebellion. Out of disappointment with the lack of prospects, tens of thousands of people leave the Western Balkans every year. At the same time, those living at home are becoming increasingly displeased with catastrophic health care and educational emergencies, poor public infrastructure and environmental problems.

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Western Balkans: Demos against corrupt rulers

Once regarded as a beacon of hope, the European Union has lost its reputation on the ground because, in the eyes of many people, it relies too much on the authoritarian leaders as political partners. EU politicians are also currently causing anger: After opposition parties in Serbia, Montenegro and Albania declared a parliamentary boycott, in Brussels it was taciturn that only the parliament could be the scene of a political dialogue, as the opposition should return there. The boycotts are understandable, says political scientist Dzihic. "The culture of authoritarian informality reduces parliaments to scenes in the mock democracies of the region."

A high-ranking European diplomat in Belgrade, who wants to remain anonymous, takes a tough stand against the SPIEGEL with the EU: "We are witnessing the collapse of the EU's Western Balkan policy." In the Brussels Commission, coherence and oversight seem to have been lost An expression of this is that the mass protests in the region simply are not perceived. "

Probably that is why the demonstrations lack a symbol that was often seen earlier, this time completely: the European flag.