Thousands of Serbian students converge on Belgrade for major rally

Euronews

14-03-2025

Thousands of Serbian students began to arrive in Belgrade on Friday evening in preparation for a major anti-government demonstration planned for Saturday.
Ahead of Saturday's march, students from hundreds of villages and cities across the country joined forces, walking by foot to the capital, while onlookers watched and cheered.
The Serbian capital was on edge ahead of the major anti-government rally, with the authorities of President Aleksandar Vucic stepping up efforts to dissuade people from attending.
The rally is being seen as a test for Vucic's government, which has been dealing with growing public dissatisfaction that has culminated in months of anti-graft protests in the Balkan nation.
On Friday, the UN Human Rights Office called for the demonstration to be peaceful and urged Serbian authorities to respect international law.
"The UN Human Rights Office reminds Serbia that it is bound by its obligations under international human rights law to protect and respect the full exercise of rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression," Jeremy Laurence, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said.
While previous student-led rallies in other Serbian cities have been peaceful despite drawing huge crowds, President Vucic has repeatedly warned that violence is planned at the rally and threatened arrests over any incidents.
His supporters have been camping in the city centre, with tractors parked around a park outside the Serbian presidency building in Belgrade, fueling fears of potential clashes.
Local officials in the capital announced that the Parliament building across the street will be locked for the next three days due to security reasons.
The nationwide anti-graft movement in Serbia, which began more than four months ago when a concrete awning collapsed at a train station in the country's north, killing fifteen people, is largely being driven by university students.
Vucic's firm hold on power in Serbia has been shaken by nearly daily protests, and the movement for change is gaining traction.
To remain competitive, the European Union needs a skilled workforce. A shortage of this is therefore a problem, and the Commission and the European Parliament have recently renewed efforts to tackle it.
"Four in five businesses struggle to find the workers that they need with the right skill set. There are more than 40 occupations with EU wide shortages, especially in important sectors like construction, trades, transport and some healthcare professions", Roxana Mînzatu, European Commission Vice-President responsible for social rights, skills and quality employment, told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
This shortage of skilled labour is due to problems of supply and demand and a mismatch between the qualifications of workers and the needs of employers, as Ilias Livanos, an expert on skills and the labour market at the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop), told Euronews:
"There could be pressures because of the demand. And clearly for the ICT professions, given that they keep developing so rapidly, we don't really know what the demand will be in 5 or 10 years. So how we can prepare for this specific knowledge ? And clearly the systems, education systems are not prepared for this."
This shortage is likely to get worse because of demographic factors and the digital and ecological transitions.
"Firstly, demographics. The EU is going to lose 1 million workers every year until 2050," Peter Bosch, senior research associate at the Egmont Institute, told Euronews.
"Secondly, there is a rapid change in the type of skills that will be needed because of robotisation, because of artificial intelligence, because of what is happening in different sectors," he explained, adding:
"The third reason is Europe's economic recovery, with many Member States and the European Union making large amounts of money available."
The European rearmament plan proposed by the European Commission, which contains a €800 billion budget, and the massive investment plan in defence and infrastructure presented by the likely future German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will require recruitment in many sectors, according to Peter Bosch.
The education system, but also companies, have important roles to play here, as, after all: "The skill system has no single owner".
While the formal education system has an important part to play in developing skills, continuing training is also "the responsibility of individuals and employers," according to Livanos.
The EU's new roadmap has set the course: On 5 March, the European executive launched a new initiative - the Skills Union - to boost training and therefore European competitiveness.
This approach is based on four pillars. It recommends investing in education and training, promoting professional retraining, encouraging the mobility of students and workers, and making the EU more attractive to foreign workers.
In concrete terms, the Commission wants to launch "skills guarantees", for example, to "help companies hire or train people at risk of losing their jobs", Roxana Mînzatu expained.
Another flagship project called "Choose Europe" aims to attract skilled workers from third countries to the EU.
The European executive also wants to support visas for foreign students, strengthen the skills pact to support the upgrading and retraining of workers, and make the 'Erasmus+' exchange programme more accessible.
But the EU is not the only one in the race, warns Peter Bosch.
"The European Union is going to need people, but so will China and India and Arab countries, and Arab countries are offering huge salaries for people to come to work in their countries," says the researcher. The European Union is waking up, but it needs to do so very quickly.