The Student List, which won a majority in Serbia’s recent parliamentary elections, plans to send delegations to the US and Russia after it establishes the new Serbian government, to hold talks on the sanctions on Naftna Industrija Srbije and an extension of the Russian natural gas supply contract.
Serbia’s energy sector has been in a delicate position, a sort of an energy crisis, over the past year and a half. The supply of crude oil and fuels directly depends on the decision of the US to grant an operating license to Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS), while the supply of natural gas depends on Russia’s decision to extend the supply agreement. On top of that, NIS’s license expires today.
Academician Radomir Saičić, one of the candidates of the Student List for members of parliament, told NIN that the program of a new Government of Serbia exists and its implementation will be measurable.
Saičić: Our delegations will hold talks in Washington and Moscow
He stressed that in the first 30 days, the government will ensure the stability of the exchange rate of the national currency – dinar, regular payments of salaries and pensions, the supply of energy, including crude oil, gas, and the functioning of power utility Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS).
“Our delegations will hold talks in Washington (the expiration of the OFAC decision on the temporary suspension of sanctions against NIS) and in Moscow (the gas arrangement), to negotiate longer-term arrangements,” Saičić explained.
He is a professor at the Faculty of Chemistry in Belgrade and member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU).
He pointed out that the budget for 2027 will also be prepared and adopted, with a U-turn in spending, along with greater transparency. Within a 100-day period, measures aimed at decriminalising the state, restructuring and governance professionalization will be taken, Saičić added.
Gas agreement repeatedly extended since May 2025, NIS sanctions suspended since January 2026
The US has imposed sanctions because of the majority ownership of Russia’s Gazprom in NIS. They were announced in January 2025, then postponed, and they came into force in October.
For several months, NIS was unable to import and refine oil, and then at the beginning of 2026 it received a licence from the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to continue operating. The licence, issued partly because the negotiations on the sale of NIS to Hungary’s MOL had begun, has since been repeatedly extended for limited periods.
NIS holds about three quarters of Serbia’s fuels market and operates the country’s sole refiner of crude oil.
As for Russia, the three-year arrangement with Serbia on gas delivery expired at the end of May 2025 and was subsequently extended via contract annexes. It was last extended on September 30 through the end of the year.
Serbia covers about 90% of its gas needs with supplies from Russia.
