“Pumpaj!”: Inside Serbia’s Historic Student-Led Fight for Democracy

What started as a deadly railway tragedy quickly ballooned into an unprecedented youth protest movement in Europe. For months now, tens of thousands of Serbian students have taken to the streets, occupied their campuses, obstructed highways, and walked from city to city as a call for democracy. At the heart of their unrest lies frustration towards the Serbian government’s corruption, lack of transparency, rising violence, and political repression. 

On May 9th, this movement reached Maastricht for the first time. Among the protesters was Nadja. Born and raised in the Serbian city of Novi Sad, Nadja is now living and studying in Germany. Inspired by the ultramarathon from Novi Sad to Brussels, she decided to organize her own: a walk from Aachen to Brussels, passing through Maastricht and Leuven. What started as a ‘modest’ idea quickly grew, with more than 85 people joining the project. Together, the group walked across three countries in four days, united around one slogan: Pumpaj!” (Pump it!). A call to keep ‘pumping’ the government until real, meaningful change is achieved. 

Drawing on insights from conversations with Nadja, this article hopes to clarify the origins and aims of these historical protests - and why we should pay attention to them.

Nadja, on the left. Credits: @jovanakostov

The Railway Station Tragedy: A Catalyst for Protest 

The protests sparked in the wake of a tragic event: “the railway station tragedy”. On November 1st, the newly renovated canopy of a railway station in Novi Sad collapsed, killing 16 people and severely injuring one more. As Nadja explains, the railway canopy was “brand new” and renovated twice between 2021 and mid-2024 by a shady Chinese-led consortium as part of China’s Belt and Road initiative. For many, this collapse was no accident, but a direct consequence of shoddy construction fueled by widespread corruption. 

Shock and grief quickly turned into anger towards Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić’s populist government, the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). Above all, the catastrophe revealed a system where political influence prioritizes profit over safety. Quickly, the collapse became a ‘catalyst’ for mass mobilization. Across Serbia, students started to meet in student plenums or assemblies to organize protests, occupy university buildings, and sleep on campus floors. Seven months later, 80% of the universities in Serbia remain blocked. 

Overall, protesters are united over four demands, namely: 

• (1) the publication of all documents related to the station’s renovation, 

• (2) a stop to the prosecution of students arrested during the protests,

• (3) prosecution of police and security forces involved in violent actions against protesters,

• (4) a 20% increase in the budget allocated to higher education.

Nadja made it clear: until these demands are not met, Serbian students will not stop protesting.

A Movement with no Head 

What makes these protests in Serbia particularly interesting is the way they are organized. Students in Serbia have established what can be called “disobedient institutions.”. In a climate of political distrust, students have rejected ‘institutionalized politics’ and representative democracy in Serbia - systems they associate with failure and corruption. Instead, they organize the protest and define rules through a model of ‘self-governance’, grounded in direct democracy. There is no such thing as a ‘leader of the movement’ or a ‘dominant voice’. During the student plenums, every decision, from legal support to logistics planning, is made collectively by vote. This way, Serbian students have created their own unique political sovereignty: one that reimagines the very meaning of democracy from the ground up. 

credits: @jovanakostov

The SNS’s Strike Back 

The SNS government responded to the protests violently and used different tactics to try to shut them down. Nadja recalls the moment when one of her friends was offered money to infiltrate student protests and initiate chaos to discourage people from joining them. This story stayed anchored in Nadja’s mind when she organized the Aachen-Brussels protest, and she explains having conducted extensive background checks on each of the 85 participants to ensure none had been ‘corrupted’ in any way.

As Nadja further outlines, the government’s repression went a step further on March 15th, 2025. On this day, a mass protest was held in Belgrade, which reunited an estimated number of more than 325,000 protesters. However, the movement took a darker turn when the government allegedly deployed a military-grade sonic weapon. This illegal weapon, known for emitting “targeted sound waves” which can, among others, cause disorientation, panic, and - at worst - irreversible hearing loss. 

Despite the government’s attempts to suppress the movement, protests have only gained momentum. 

What’s next? 

Since the beginning of the protests, the U.S. and the E.U. have remained silent, and Western media have largely ignored the Serbian students’ call. Many reasons can explain this “geopolitical silence.” Some argue that it comes from EU-Serbia's deepening economic relationships, such as the deal in August 2024 in which President Vučića agreed to supply lithium to the E.U. Hence, this silence is far from being ‘neutral’. By failing to pressure Vučića, Western powers have shown their complicity in a system that sustains and empowers authoritarian regimes in Europe. 

Today, the protests in Serbia represent Europe’s largest protest movement and are widely supported by an estimated 80% of the Serbian population. But to frame this uprising as a simple ‘anti-corruption’ campaign would considerably oversimplify the entire movement. More than a government change, students are, above all, fighting for a systemic, bottom-up transformation - a full “reclaim of institutions” and a reimagination of how society should be governed, grounded in peace, transparency, and justice.