Serbia

Serbia: Rising Defense Outlays Against a Weak Liberal Democracy Score

Serbia's economy was valued at $90.10 billion in 2024, with per-capita output of $13,679.21, on a population of 6,586,476, per World Bank WDI figures. Government debt is projected at 42.6% of GDP in 2026, per IMF WEO, a forward-looking projection rather than a confirmed outturn. Reserves stood at $26.80 billion in 2025, per IMF IFS, a figure drawn from a different year and source than the debt projection, so the two should not be combined into a single balance-sheet reading.

Defense Posture

SIPRI Milex data place Serbia's military spending at $2.78 billion in 2025, equivalent to 2.755% of GDP by SIPRI's own GDP series for that year. Active personnel numbered 28,000 in 2022, per COW NMC, with a composite index of national capability (CINC) of 0.00088199053 for the same year, also per COW NMC.

Governance

V-Dem v15's 2025 figures show an electoral democracy index of 0.3 and a liberal democracy index of 0.208, both on the low end of the index's 0–1 scale, alongside a state capacity score of 0.367. Taken together, these figures point to a political system with constrained electoral competitiveness and even more limited liberal constraints on power, per V-Dem's methodology. All three governance scores are drawn from the same V-Dem v15 release and reference year, 2025, so they form a single coherent snapshot rather than a composite of different vintages.

Energy

Serbia's primary energy consumption was 0.6421 exajoules in 2023, per Our World in Data's energy series, with electricity generation at 36.62 terawatt-hours in 2025 from the same source. Domestic oil production was 12.97 terawatt-hours and gas production 5.663 terawatt-hours, but both figures date to 2016, per Our World in Data.

Data Gaps

The oil and gas production figures above are a decade old and predate any more recent shifts in Serbia's energy mix; no updated production series is available in this bundle, so current output cannot be assessed from these figures. The 2.755% milex/GDP figure should be read strictly against SIPRI's own GDP series for 2025; it should not be checked against the World Bank's $90.10 billion GDP figure for 2024, which is a different year and a different underlying series.

Sources: World Bank WDI, IMF WEO, IMF IFS, SIPRI Milex, COW NMC, V-Dem v15, Our World in Data (Energy).