On Jan. 28, 2025, Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic resigned after months of mass protests over the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad that killed 15 people. He said he was stepping down to avoid further complicating the situation and to keep tensions in society from rising any higher.
The protest movement has grown far beyond the original disaster. Tens of thousands of people have regularly taken to the streets demanding accountability for the collapse and accusing the authorities of corruption. Students have led much of the effort, blocking roads, halting traffic and shutting universities for months. The demonstrations culminated in a general strike and a huge rally in Belgrade in December, with an estimated 100,000 people taking part. Another wave of anger followed an attack on a female student during a blockade in Novi Sad.
The railway station collapse itself remains the symbol around which the unrest formed. It happened in November, when a concrete canopy at the Novi Sad station fell and killed 15 people. More than a dozen people were later charged, including former Transport Minister Goran Vesic, who resigned days after the disaster. Protesters say the response has been too slow and too shallow, and they continue to demand transparency about the station’s reconstruction and responsibility at the top of government.
President Aleksandar Vucic now has 10 days to decide whether to call parliamentary elections or try to assemble a new government. He has also proposed pardons for some students and tutors who faced charges over the protests and launched a broader cabinet reshuffle. Vucevic said Novi Sad Mayor Milan Djuric would also resign, but the bigger question is whether that will matter. In Serbia’s system, real power remains concentrated in the presidency, and Vucic continues to dominate the political field through the ruling Progressive Party and the media environment around it.
That is why Vucevic’s resignation may be more symbolically important than politically decisive. It removes one face of the government, but not necessarily the forces protesters blame for the country’s problems. If a new prime minister is not appointed within 30 days of the National Assembly confirming the resignation, parliamentary elections become more likely. For the moment, the movement has forced a major concession. Whether it can force deeper change will depend on whether the protests keep their momentum or whether the resignation is enough to cool the streets.
Whether the resignation eases pressure on the government will depend on what students and other protesters decide next. The movement has already shown it can outlast one resignation and one reshuffle, and many demonstrators are focused less on personnel changes than on the structure of power around Vucic himself. If the protests continue, Serbia could still move toward an early election. If they fade, the ruling party will likely present the resignation as proof that the system corrected itself without needing a deeper political break.
That concentration of power is what makes the resignation both serious and limited. The protesters forced out a prime minister, but they have not yet broken the system that produced him. Whether Serbia moves toward a more open political contest will depend on whether the demonstrations keep expanding or eventually give way to the familiar pattern of compromise and drift.
