Three devastating events – a train collision that killed 57 people in Greece, a nightclub fire that claimed 59 young lives in North Macedonia and a collapsed railway station roof that left 15 dead in Serbia – ignited sustained anti-corruption protests in all three countries. In each, people realised these weren’t random accidents, but the consequences of systemic failure: neglected safety regulations, illegally issued permits and compromised construction oversight, with corruption the common denominator. They took to the streets to demand systemic change.

Young people, particularly students, have been at the forefront of all three movements. In Greece, university students have protested alongside trade union members, building on the country’s recent history of mobilisation against government economic austerity policies. But this time a leading role has been played by a group formed by families of those caught up in the tragedy, the Association of Relatives of Tempi Victims, which has become recognised as a strong and legitimate voice.

In North Macedonia, protests have brought together people from many parts of society, across economic and political lines. Again, young people have been heavily involved. With many young people leaving the country to seek opportunities abroad, the tragedy became a lightning rod for disillusionment with limited prospects and endemic corruption.

Serbia’s movement stands out for its impressive geographic reach: by mid-March it had spread to some 400 cities and towns across the country. It has embraced innovative tactics such as symbolic ‘half-hour noise’ protests with people blowing whistles and vuvuzelas following moments of solemn silence for victims. It has also faced the harshest police response.

All three countries became democracies within living memory. Greece’s democratic system was restored five decades ago when its military junta collapsed. North Macedonia and Serbia were both parts of Communist Yugoslavia until its 1990 dissolution. Today, there’s widespread disillusionment with democracies that have allowed clientelism, corruption and patronage to flourish, effectively putting state functions at the service of elite interests instead of public needs. In Serbia, and to a lesser degree in North Macedonia, governments have also taken authoritarian turns. The most profoundly disappointed are young people who grew up since transitions to democracy and were taught to expect better.

The human cost of corruption

In Greece on 28 February 2023, a passenger train filled with students collided head-on with a freight train near the Tempi gorge. The Greek railway system suffered from chronic underinvestment and maintenance failures linked to corrupt contracting practices costing billions a year.

In the immediate aftermath of the crash, tens of thousands protested in the capital, Athens, while still more took to the streets across the country. Protests reignited on the tragedy’s second anniversary in the face of a lack of convincing answers from the authorities. Private investigators hired by the families found that many victims had initially survived the crash only to die in the ensuing fire, possibly caused by undeclared highly flammable chemical cargo.

In North Macedonia, the Pulse nightclub that caught fire in the town of Kočani on 16 March was a disaster waiting to happen: it was a converted factory with only one viable exit, a locked and unusable back door, built with highly flammable materials and with no fire alarms or water sprinklers. It operated with an illegally issued licence. Illegal pyrotechnics started the blaze.

The railway station in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-biggest city, where a canopy collapsed in November 2024, had recently been renovated. The building contracts, signed with a consortium of Chinese companies, were confidential. The tragedy was preventable but cutting corners meant higher profits. Protesters were clear that a public infrastructure project had been used as an opportunity for embezzlement.

In all three cases, excessive influence of private interests over government decisions meant public safety was sacrificed for private gain. Each time, civil society groups, journalists and opposition politicians pointed to the warning signs that went ignored.

Protesters understand that corruption is institutional rather than an individual failing: the tragedies came in the absence of working mechanisms to check power and ensure accountability. North Macedonian protesters expressed this view on their banners: ‘We are not dying from accidents, we are dying from corruption’. The same sentiment echoed in a Greek protest slogan, ‘Their policies cost human lives’ and a Serbian message to the authorities: ‘You have blood on your hands’. Another popular Serbian protest motto, ‘We are all under the canopy’, conveyed a general sense of shared vulnerability from corrupt governance structures.

Demands and responses

Protesters’ demands across all three countries shared striking similarities: accountability for those directly responsible and officials who enabled safety violations, transparent investigations free from political influence and systemic reforms to address corruption’s root causes.

In Greece, the emphasis was on rebuilding regulatory capacity, while in Serbia, the focus fell on prioritising transparency in public contracting. But in all three countries, protesters made clear that democracy requires functioning accountability mechanisms, not just elections, and that accountability can’t be limited to punishing individuals, but must be institutionalised in the form of checks and balances and public oversight.

Government responses have also been similar, showing a pattern of minor concessions followed by attempts to manage rather than meaningfully address public anger.

North Macedonia’s interior minister was quick to admit the nightclub’s licence was illegally issued and the authorities ordered the detention of 20 people, including the club manager and government officials. But protesters saw these actions as scapegoating rather than genuine reform.

In the wake of Greece’s train crash, which the prime minister blamed on a ‘tragic human error’, the transport minister resigned. As public outrage mounted, the government’s narrative shifted, but investigations progressed at a glacial pace. Critics, including victims’ families and opposition parties, accused authorities of attempting to cover up evidence and avoiding the question of political responsibility. Government officials dismissed the protests, criticised those questioning the justice system’s independence and accused opposition parties of instrumentalising the tragedy. In early March, opposition parties challenged the centre-right government with a no-confidence motion, which was defeated.

In Serbia, protesters holding commemorative gatherings in the aftermath of the Novi Sad disaster were attacked by ruling party members and supporters. The government initially attempted a conciliatory approach, releasing some classified documents and promising to address protesters’ demands. This was followed by symbolic concessions, including the resignation of the prime minister and several ministers. But as protests persisted, the response hardened.

President Aleksandar Vučic shifted to confrontational rhetoric, accusing protesters of orchestrating violence, claiming they were puppets of western intelligence services trying to oust him and threatening a ‘final’ showdown. Government-controlled media launched campaigns to discredit protesters, while authorities warned against ‘spreading misinformation’ about police tactics. Despite calling for police restraint, Vučić ordered the detention of ‘troublemakers’ and stated he wouldn’t ‘let the streets set the rules’. His proposal for an early election was widely viewed by protesters as a diversionary tactic given the government’s extensive control of the electoral system.

The pattern of symbolic gestures followed by resistance to substantive reform, sometimes accompanied by repression of protests, revealed the existence of a credibility gap: people can’t trust that announced reforms will be implemented because implementation depends on institutions they know to be compromised by corruption. The rapid shift from conciliation to confrontation, particularly evident in Serbia, shows how fragile government commitments can be when accountability threatens entrenched interests. This is why protesters across all three countries have emphasised civil society oversight and adherence to international standards as essential components of any credible reform process.

From street protest to institutional reform

The emotional impact of the three tragedies helped create a policy window, mobilising people who might otherwise have been politically disengaged, focusing intense public attention on institutional failures and generating pressure for reform. The critical question is whether these windows will close with minimal change, or whether sustained pressure will achieve meaningful institutional reform.

The protest movements face the challenge of keeping up mobilisation as the emotional impact of tragedy fades and participation costs accumulate. They have to try to avoid co-optation or division in the face of governmental adoption of reform language with little substantive content. They’ll have to shift from opposing clear wrongs to offering politically feasible yet transformative reform ideas.

History shows real reform is rare. That brings with it a danger: in the absence of government action, momentum could be co-opted by populist politicians, who in many countries have been able to take advantage of anger at the failures of governments and political parties and put it at the service of their regressive agendas.

But there are also reasons for optimism. The broad-based protest coalitions that have emerged have shown the potential to cross traditional political divides. Their focus on specific, documented governance failures has provided tangible reform targets rather than abstract demands. The moral imperative of honouring victims has created emotional resources that could sustain movements over time. And these movements have come at a time when corrupt elites’ legitimacy was already under strain, including because of economic challenges.

The current protest movements serve as powerful reminders of how power in democracies is supposed to be exercised and for whose benefit. In the aftermath of preventable tragedies, people are actively reclaiming democratic promises that have repeatedly been betrayed by those in power. As protesters continue to gather in town squares across the Balkans, they embody a compelling vision of democracies that genuinely serve their citizens rather than those who govern them.

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