Is Serbia still on course to join the European Union?

IT IS BACK to the future, but this time with iPhones and selfies. As thousands of Serbs protest against their president, Aleksandar Vucic, it is easy to recall the heady days of the 1990s when people marched against Slobodan Milosevic. When he fell in 2000, their slogan was “It is over!” Today’s banners proclaim “It has begun!”

The number of protesters who have marched for the past six weeks is disputed. But days before a visit by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on January 17th, they showed no sign of abating. The protests started after Borko Stefanovic, leader of a small leftist party, was coshed and kicked as he arrived on November 23rd for a meeting in the town of Krusevac. The perpetrators, he says, were thugs connected to a local businessman close to Mr Vucic’s ruling party. Serbia is a front-runner to join the EU, whose leaders, says Mr Stefanovic, indulge Mr Vucic because they want the Balkans to remain stable and for him to clinch an agreement with Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008.