27.05.2026. » 16:10 | ACDC
Reaction of Civil Society on the Exclusion of Students Studying in the Serbian Language from the Financial and Social Assistance Program
The exclusion of Serbian students is not an administrative oversight, but a mechanism of institutional discrimination
The latest package of financial and social assistance intended for the student population has once again excluded students studying in the Serbian language. For this reason, we address the public, institutions, and international representatives with serious concern regarding the continuation of the practice of institutional exclusion of the Serbian community.
This concerns students of the University of Priština temporarily seated in Kosovska Mitrovica and affiliated higher education institutions attended by members of the Serbian community, as well as Bosniak, Roma, and other non-majority communities.
The application requirements, mandatory registration through the “e-Kosovo” platform, and the requirement that higher education institutions be part of the accreditation system have, in practice, automatically excluded these students from this measure.
This is neither an isolated incident nor a technical oversight. It represents the continuation of a pattern already seen during the COVID-19 assistance packages, when the same students were excluded from support in an identical manner.
Particularly concerning is the fact that such measures are implemented despite the existing legal and political framework. The Brussels Agreement of 2013 included the obligation to establish the Association/Community of Serb-majority Municipalities, whose competencies, according to the agreement and the 2015 implementation arrangements, explicitly include the field of education.
Thirteen years later, the Association/Community has still not been established, despite clearly assumed obligations and the continuous insistence of the European Union and the international community. As a consequence, the Serbian educational system functions without the institutional framework that Prishtina accepted and later refused to implement.
The Ohrid Agreement of 2023 introduced an additional obligation to ensure “an appropriate level of self-management for the Serbian community,” including formal guarantees for existing institutions. None of these obligations have been fulfilled.
Instead of implementing the assumed obligations, administrative measures such as this one systematically narrow the space for the functioning of the Serbian community, while unresolved political issues are used as instruments of pressure against ordinary people, including students.
A measure whose criteria for access to social assistance produce disproportionately negative consequences for students educated in the Serbian language constitutes a form of indirect discrimination.
Students studying in the Serbian language exercise their rights through the educational system of the Republic of Serbia, which is legitimate, legally grounded, and in line with international standards for the protection of minority rights.
We demand an end to the practice of using administrative criteria for the indirect exclusion of the Serbian community from social measures and call for the establishment of transitional mechanisms, until status-related issues are resolved through dialogue, which will ensure that the exercise of social rights is not conditioned by acceptance of an institutional framework that remains the subject of the negotiation process.
Students are not a party to the political dialogue. They cannot and must not bear the consequences of unfulfilled political obligations.
The use of social assistance as a means of political pressure, especially against young people, represents a practice incompatible with the values that the institutions in Prishtina formally claim to uphold.
We expect a clear, concrete, and responsible response
- Social Knowledge for Real Accountability and Transparency – SOKRAT
- Advocacy Center for Democratic Culture– ACDC
- Communication for Social Development – CSD
- Ženski Inkluzivni Centar – ŽEC
- Mreža za građanski aktivizam – MGA
- Omladinska Parteška Aktivnost – OPA
- Centar za depolitizaciju kosovskog društva – CDKD
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