Awkwardly for Vucic, however, development of the project coincides with an unprecedented challenge to his 13-year grip on power, amid ongoing nationwide protests triggered by the deaths of 16 people when an outdoor canopy collapsed at a newly renovated railway station in northern Serbia on November 1 last year.

According to financial reports, 3.8 million euros was spent last year on marketing Expo 2027, all from state coffers given that the company Expo 2027 had no revenues. Ads ran on Facebook and Instagram and there are more to come under a 15.5-million-euro marketing deal signed in June last year with a consortium of four Serbian marketing or design firms – Galerija 12, Two Rivers, Drive, and McCann. The contract will run until end-2027. 

Hollywood movie star Jackie Chan and eight-time Olympic sprint gold medallist Usain Bolt have been hired for unspecified fees to serve as Expo ‘ambassadors’, presented to the public by Vucic himself.

The president has poured his political capital into the trade fair, one part of what the government calls its ‘Leap Into The Future’ initiative. This includes a new 52,000-seat national sports stadium, a retail complex and aquatic centre, development of the biotechnology sector and the construction of new roads and railway infrastructure, all worth some 17.8 billion euros and financed from expensive commercial loans.

Critics say the outlay is obscene and question the benefit to ordinary Serbs. But as he fends off calls for early elections, the president is turning more and more to Expo as a symbol of Serbia’s success under his 13-year rule.

Vucic and the SNS are “using it for self-promotion” and seeking to claw back public support, said Galjina Ognjanov, a professor of marketing at the University of Belgrade.

“If we look at it that way, then it’s definitely part of the current regime’s political campaign.”

Chan and Bolt, both uncosted

Serbia’s feared former information minister during the 1998-99 Kosovo war, Vucic returned to power in 2012 having claimed to have ditched his ultranationalist past and embraced the goal of European Union accession. But as EU integration stalled, rights groups say Serbian democracy regressed under his rule, which at 13 years and counting now rivals that of late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

Trying to grow the economy, Vucic and the SNS have turned to major infrastructure projects that have frequently been shadowed by allegations of corruption, corner-cutting and mismanagement.

Before Expo, there was Belgrade Waterfront, a sprawling, Dubai-style development on the right bank of the Sava river that many Belgraders, architects and grassroots activists decried as an elitist vanity project, a glittering jungle of high-rise apartment blocks carrying price tags far beyond the reach of ordinary Serbs. 

Since the railway tragedy in Novi Sad in November last year, Vucic has tried to contrast Expo’s image of ‘progress’ with the disruption caused by protesters, many of them students who have occupied university buildings as well as members of the public who regularly block roads, bridges and intersections to press their demands for accountability, rule of law, media freedom and, most recently, early elections. 

“Despite the challenges and despite the noise, shouting, yelling and harsh words from those who want to bring Serbia down, I have come to show you how much we have progressed on the Expo,” he said in April during a PR visit to the construction site.

Vucic personally welcomed Bolt and then Chan to Belgrade in June and September this year. Next to a picture posted to Instagram showing Vucic and Bolt performing the latter’s signature victory pose, Vucic hailed the Jamaican as a man “for whom limits never existed”. As for Chan, the president said his “film artistry continued to inspire all generations”.

The Expo 2027 company also posted photos on its website of Chan with Vucic and Mali, the finance minister, despite the fact that, according to company director Danilo Jerinic, neither Chan nor Bolt is being paid from public coffers.

“The engagement of ambassadors is not paid from the citizens’ pockets; the cost is covered by the exhibition’s sponsors,” Jerinic told weekly magazine Vreme.

There is no public list of the exhibition’s sponsors, and the company did not respond to BIRN’s questions about who the sponsors are, what exactly the ambassadors’ duties are, or how much money is being spent on advertising and PR expenses this year.

Those adverts and promotional videos have featured several cabinet ministers, including Mali.

Notably, when the company Expo 2027 sought to boost the visibility of two specific ads featuring cabinet ministers on Facebook and Instagram earlier this year, Meta classified them as ‘Ads About Social Issues, Election or Politics’ and removed them because they lacked the necessary disclaimer.

Transparency, graft concerns

Like Belgrade Waterfront, Expo 2027 has been dogged by criticism about the level of transparency and competition in the awarding of public tenders for its realisation.

Both are being built according to special laws adopted by the SNS-dominated parliament and which exempt them from standard public procurement rules.

The government says they are projects of huge strategic importance and so should benefit from streamlined procedures. Critics say too often the contracts are going to firms with close ties to the SNS.

In as many as 86 per cent of all tenders issued so far by Expo 2027, with a total value exceeding 330 million euros, only one appropriate offer was received. This includes the June 2024 marketing contract.

Transparency Serbia has voiced concern at what it calls a “negligible level of competition”.      

Danijela Milovanovic Rodic, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade, told BIRN: “The planning and legal system of Serbia has been significantly reshaped to serve the large infrastructure projects carried out over the past decade.”

“Decision-making, planning, and construction all take place within non-transparent procedures designed through special laws, and budgets change significantly during implementation.”

Both Belgrade Waterfront and Expo 2027, she said, “enjoy strong political backing and heavy promotion”. 

Similar concerns have been voiced by the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, in its reports on Serbia’s progress towards accession. That has not stopped EU members Greece, Germany, Italy, France, Austria and Hungary from all already confirming their participation in the trade fair, according to the Expo 2027 website and media reports.

A French diplomatic source, who declined to be named, said France’s participation was confirmed by President Emmanuel Macron at a meeting with Vucic in April. 

Asked about transparency and graft concerns, the source said: “The fight against corruption is a special area of attention in France’s Strategy for the Western Balkans adopted in 2019 and recently updated”.

“France supports Serbia’s aim to use the EXPO 2027 as a way to accelerate its economic convergence with the European Union and to showcase the success of its development as a European modern economy,” the source told BIRN, while giving a nod to accusations of democratic backsliding: “France believes that the success of the EXPO 2027 will be determined by the ability to engage all the vital forces of the country, which implies the preservation of a vibrant democratic society.”

Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy told BIRN that Germany will participate with its own pavilion. 

“The German government welcomes the first Expo in Europe after quite some time,” it said. “We also welcome that the specialised Expo is held in the Western Balkans.”

“Especially with EU enlargement in mind, the federal government in talks with the Serbian government regularly expresses its expectations vis-à-vis existing deficits in rule of law,” it told BIRN.

The ministry declined to comment on whether the fair might be used as part of a partisan PR campaign.

The Hungarian government’s International Communications Office told BIRN that it is committed to participation in what it described as an important event for the region.

“This will be the first such international expo in the Western Balkans, and due to both the geographical proximity and the neighbouring state, Hungarian participation is of special importance,” it said. It did not answer BIRN’s questions about the corruption allegations levelled at the project.

‘Futurama’ in Belgrade

Experts say the government has created confusion in the minds of the Serbian public by rolling Expo 2027, the new national stadium, the retail park and other infrastructure projects into one ‘Leap Into The Future’ in which it is unclear where one begins and the other finishes, who is in charge and how much each element costs.

“The terminological confusion surrounding the EXPO Belgrade 2027 project is neither insignificant nor accidental,” said Milovanovic Rodic, from the Faculty of Architecture. “It has directly affected the ability to understand the scope of the project, the relevant competences, and the modes of its planning and management.”

This, in turn, makes it harder to assess the benefit to the public or the way in which public resources are being spent, she told BIRN.

“Without a clear project definition, it is impossible to evaluate its actual costs, spatial impact, infrastructure requirements, or potential risks to the environment and local communities.”

Undeterred, Vucic has taken his Expo pitch around the world. In early September, during a visit to China, he vowed to welcome “flying cars” to the fair.

“Next year, by December 1, we will be able to show how flying cars operate on Serbian territory, and that we will have the application and use of flying cars during Expo,” Vucic was reported as saying by the B92 website.

Ognjanov accused the president of using Expo 2027 to distract attention from growing popular discontent. He is banking on flying cars, she said, to stop people from thinking “about their significant social and economic problems”.

Milica Stojanovic contributed to this article.

NOTE: This article was amended on September 18, 2025 to add the Hungarian government’s comment on Expo 2027.