Belotinac
EU development target—Belotinac's €179,000 school reconstruction in 2023 tests whether external investment can reverse rural Serbia's demographic decline.
Belotinac exists because the Nišava District needed schools—and because EU development money flows to places willing to receive it. This village of 1,080 in Doljevac municipality gained attention in 2023 when the European Union invested €179,000 to reconstruct its 1955-era primary school, the Vuk Karadžić school that serves 200 students from Belotinac, Čapljinac, and neighboring villages.
The Doljevac municipality context matters. The medieval Koprijan fortress overlooks the region from its hilltop, a protected cultural monument recalling when this valley between Niš and the Morava was contested ground. But modern Belotinac's identity is agricultural rather than strategic—corn, vegetables, and the small-scale farming that sustains southern Serbian villages while failing to generate the employment that keeps young people home.
The school reconstruction captures Belotinac's present challenge. The EU PRO Plus program that funded it targets exactly these communities: large enough to justify institutional investment, small enough that population decline threatens institutional viability. By 2026, whether Belotinac's school expands or contracts will signal the village's trajectory—whether EU investment catalyzed revival or merely delayed inevitable consolidation with larger neighbors.