The Student List’s victory in the elections held in Serbia on October 25 was greeted with enthusiasm in many European capitals. However, the influential German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) warns that the winners’ stance on Kosovo could leave Serbia isolated.
The analysis was written by Michael Martens, FAZ’s Balkans correspondent, who also set out its main points in eight posts on X.
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The student movement’s platform does not recognize Kosovo’s independence. In Martens’s interpretation, it may not recognize Kosovo’s statehood either: it calls Kosovo the “so-called Republic” and describes its institutions as temporary.
The movement wants officials who implemented the agreements reached with Pristina in 2023, under EU mediation, to be prosecuted. The Student List considers those agreements unconstitutional.
Martens also raises the question of whether the aim is to move the Serbian university located in North Mitrovica to Pristina without consulting Kosovo’s institutions.
On foreign policy, the platform opposes imposing sanctions on Russia and calls for further strengthening strategic ties with China.
Martens notes that the students display a nationalism inherited from Aleksandar Vuçiq’s 12 years in power. They attended rallies marking the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo but did not respond on the anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide.
The German journalist acknowledges that election platforms are not necessarily binding and that the movement may take a more pragmatic approach once in power. But if the platform is implemented, he warns, Croatia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Bosniak-majority areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina could coordinate their actions against Belgrade. According to Martens, that would isolate Serbia rather than liberate it. He adds that reestablishing Serbian control over Kosovo would require a war that Serbia would lose.
The analysis comes as Washington and Brussels are urging the winners to form a government without delay. A bipartisan group of US senators said the United States remains committed to normalizing relations between Serbia and Kosovo. Meanwhile, Ilija Sërdanoviq, the leader of the Student List, has said the new government will honor international agreements signed during Vuçiq’s rule and continue the dialogue.
Kosovo’s institutions have not yet responded to the winners’ platform in Serbia.
