In a sharp ideological clash over Serbia’s foreign policy path, Dragan Đilas, the leader of the opposition Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP), issued a public rebuke on Wednesday, June 24, 2026, against prominent intellectual and university professor Milo Lompar.
Đilas rejected Lompar’s claims that the European Union acts as a silent pillar of support for President Aleksandar Vučić’s administration, countering that Serbia’s true road to democratic reform relies strictly on a firm “No to Vučić – Yes to Europe” platform.
Dismantling the Notion of “Two Serbias”
The political friction erupted after Professor Lompar publicly asserted that the European Union serves as a “point of support” for the Vučić–Brnabić regime, accusing what he termed the pro-Western “Second Serbia” of clinging to decades-old geopolitical untruths.
Đilas aggressively pushed back on X (formerly Twitter), warning that such academic terminology mirrors the divisive strategies deployed by the ruling party:
Dragan Đilas’s Statement: ““Mr. Lompar, there is no ‘First’ and ‘Second’ Serbia. There is only one single country, which all of us who are its citizens love equally. With these words, you are dividing our people in the exact same manner that Vučić and the Radicals do.””
The True Pillars of the Regime: Criminals, Not Brussels
According to the SSP leader, looking to Brussels to explain the longevity of the current regime ignores the deeply corrupted domestic networks keeping the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in power.
The Structural Breakdown of Regime Support:
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Lompar's Academic Narrative | Đilas's Political Reality
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- The European Union functions | - Domestic pillars: Criminals, thugs, fake
as a silent global backbone journalists, and corrupt prosecutors.
for the Vučić administration. | - Geopolitical reality: Regime aligns far closer
with Beijing and Moscow than Brussels.
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Đilas emphasized that the state’s actual geopolitical preference is heavily tilted east, away from Western integration. He argued this trend is clearly documented in highly critical monitoring reports issued by the European Commission and the European Parliament, which routinely condemn the degradation of the rule of law in Serbia.
Reaffirming the European Path
The opposition leader concluded by warning that isolationist sentiments—such as the phrase “No to Vučić – No to Europe”—will only doom the country to stagnation and guarantee the continuation of autocracy.
““A policy of ‘No to Vučić – No to Europe’ does not bring about change. The only thing that leads to actual systemic change is the policy of ‘No to Vučić – Yes to Europe!’”” Đilas insisted. ““We have been fighting for a European Serbia for decades. In that struggle, there are no untruths, and we will never back down from it.””
The heated exchange underscores a growing strategic rift within Serbia’s anti-Vučić spectrum, as pro-Western opposition figures and conservative, right-leaning intellectuals clash over whether European integration remains a viable vehicle for unseating the ruling regime.
