Between Silence and Selective Support: How Geopolitics Shapes EU Reactions to Informal Social Movements in Serbia (2019 Vs. 2024–25)

The European Union’s engagement with civil society actors is traditionally framed as part of its normative commitment to democracy promotion and the rule of law in the accession process. The EU has, however, shown a tendency to keep a cautious distance from informal participatory social movements in the enlargement neighbourhood and to support government stability over unpredictable social movements. Yet emerging evidence suggests that the EU’s approach to informal social movements in the Western Balkans is selective and strategically motivated. In this paper, we examine a puzzling shift in the EU’s treatment of Serbian civic mobilisation. On the one hand, the 2019 One of Five Million movement, an explicitly pro-EU, anti-authoritarian protest wave, received virtually no support or acknowledgement from EU institutions. On the other hand, the 2024–2025 student protests, framed as apolitical, explicitly refusing to refer to the EU but implicitly challenging Chinese and Russian influence, elicit timid yet positive reactions from EU representatives. We argue that this divergence reflects a broader transformation in the EU’s enlargement approach, whereby geopolitical considerations increasingly outweigh normative concerns. As Serbia deepens its security, economic, and infrastructure ties with Russia and China, the EU has become more sensitive to some informal mobilisation that challenges external authoritarian influence, even when such movements refrain from articulating democratic or pro-EU demands. Conversely, protests focused on democratic backsliding, media capture, and political violence, areas central to the EU’s normative agenda, do not trigger meaningful EU engagement when they threaten political stability or complicate relations with incumbent governments. Methodologically, we assess this hypothesis through a comparative qualitative content analysis of official EU outputs related to both protest waves. We analyse the European Commission’s Serbia Country Reports (2019 vs. 2024), public statements, and speeches by the relevant Enlargement Commissioners and the EU Parliament’s resolutions. By coding variation in quantity, tone, and framing, specifically whether EU reactions emphasize democracy, rule of law, stability, or geopolitical rivalry, we identify systematic differences in how the EU responds to informal civic actors. Firstly, this approach enables us to trace the EU’s shifting patterns in framing Serbian informal civic movements. Secondly, to assess whether the EU’s shifting engagement patterns show alignment with normative democratic principles or with geostrategic priorities shaped by intensified competition with Russia and China. We expect to find that informal social movements provide a revealing window into the deeper political logic of contemporary EU enlargement. The EU appears willing to support civic mobilisation only when it reinforces geopolitical objectives, while remaining silent when movements challenge domestic authoritarian practices without clear geopolitical implications. We argue that this selectivity exposes the informal, interest-driven dimensions of EU foreign policy and raises important questions about the future credibility of the EU’s normative commitments in the Western Balkans.