The new agreement signed at the Berlin Process summit envisions better regional cooperation and greater mobility for students in the Western Balkans, but citizens of Albanian nationality in the municipalities of Presheva, Bujanoc, and Medvegja in Serbia are facing long-standing problems.
Their diplomas obtained in Kosovo are still not recognized, despite previous agreements, including one from 2022 that concerns the mutual recognition of university diplomas.
This poses an obstacle to employment in Serbia, leading many young people to leave the country.
“I have lost all hope of having my university diploma obtained in Pristina officially recognized in Serbia and being employed with it in Presevo or Bujanovac,” says a 30-year-old woman to Radio Free Europe.
“I have decided—I will go to my brother in Switzerland, where I will take care of his children until I find a job,” she says, expressing disappointment with all the politicians in Serbia, Kosovo, and Europe, whom she believes are responsible for the problem of diploma non-recognition.
She does not want to be identified to avoid creating, as she says, additional problems for herself and her family.
The prime ministers of six Western Balkan countries—Kosovo, Albania, Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina—signed the Agreement on Access to Higher Education and Admission to Studies in the Western Balkans at the Berlin Process summit on October 14.
This new agreement aims to increase student mobility and grant them the right to study at accredited higher education institutions in the region.
In the municipalities of Presheve, Bujanoc, and Medvegje, citizens of Albanian nationality are still waiting for Serbia to begin recognizing diplomas obtained from faculties in Kosovo something that should have been resolved after the Berlin summit in 2022.
Among other things, the agreement signed at that time also included the mutual recognition of university diplomas, which the educational authorities in Serbia do not implement regarding diplomas obtained from universities in Kosovo.
For Serbia, the term “Republic of Kosovo” on diplomas is contentious.
None of the interlocutors of Radio Free Europe could provide even approximate data on the number of young people from southern Serbia awaiting certification of their diplomas from higher education institutions in Kosovo, but estimates suggest this issue affects several hundred people.
From 2008 until today, various political parties, non-governmental organizations, and the National Council of Albanians have periodically undertaken initiatives and actions to annul the decision not to recognize diplomas from Kosovo, but nothing has changed the official stance of Belgrade.
Such a protest, organized by the National Council of Albanians, was held on August 12 of this year in Bujanoc, where the problem of unrecognized diplomas was described as a form of discrimination against Albanians in the Valley.
Administrative barriers
All the citizens of Presheva, who have understood their situation in Presheva, Bujanoc and Medvegje, who have had many problems-the non-recognition of diplomas by all institutions of Higher Education of Kosovo.
Kujtim Sadriu, whose director, tells Radio Europe of freedom that after two agreements that have been with the recognition of diplomas and with the great freedom of students, simultaneously in the framework of the Berlin Process, he sees no reason for “Belgrade to harm the Albanian citizens of Albania, for the fact that the diplomat of Tirana has the inscription Republic of Kosovo”.
“If the authorities in Serbia no longer concern themselves with personal documents and vehicles with registration plates from the Republic of Kosovo, why do they take issue with a diploma from Kosovo, for which an ordinary person, a citizen of Serbia, has tried for three, four, or more years? Without an accredited diploma, they are forced to leave the country with a one-way ticket,” says Sadriu, adding that “without experts, there is no progress in society.”
“We need doctors, engineers, economists, lawyers… and the state should fight for each of them, not force them to leave the country with its own measures. That is exactly what is happening here. Without diplomas, there is no employment, and without work, there are no living conditions,” says Sadriu.
He calls on the Qualifications Agency of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Serbia, which implements the procedures for the nostrification of diplomas, to immediately address the certification of all diplomas obtained from higher education institutions in Kosovo.
“As citizens of the Republic of Serbia of Albanian ethnicity, we do not ask for mercy, but we demand that state authorities respect the Constitution, laws, and internationally accepted obligations that guarantee us equality in every aspect of life,” says Sadriu.
Diploma for Work in Germany
Nevzad Lutfiu, the chairman of the National Council of Albanians, tells Radio Free Europe that more than ten generations of young Albanians from Presevo, Bujanovac, and Medvedja are facing the problem of unrecognized diplomas from Kosovo, and the exact number of these diplomas is hard to determine.
“Our youth are massively studying in Kosovo because it is closer. There, studies are much cheaper than in Albania or North Macedonia, so the non-recognition of diplomas has a very negative impact on them, as they must emigrate. With those diplomas, they easily find jobs in Germany—one of the wealthiest countries—but not in Serbia,” says Lutfiu.
According to him, without certified diplomas, educated youth cannot be employed in state institutions, public institutions, or even in the local public sector.
He says this is a form of discrimination that the Albanian community has highlighted for years, and he calls on Belgrade to resolve this issue.
“We Protect Serbia’s Interests”
The Ministry of Education of Serbia did not respond in writing to Radio Free Europe’s questions regarding the resolution of the nostrification problem for diplomas from Kosovo.
The director of the Qualifications Agency, Časlav Mitrović, states that diplomas from Kosovo cannot be recognized because Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence.
However, he adds that diplomas from the period of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), with the UN seal, are recognized as valid in Serbia.
“Such documents are treated as local,” says Mitrović.
Diplomas from Skopje and Tirana are Not Contested
The Coordinating Body of the Government of the Republic of Serbia for the municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac, and Medvedja emphasizes that the non-recognition of university diplomas obtained in Kosovo does not selectively target members of the Albanian national minority in southern Serbia. If it did, then diplomas from higher education institutions in Albania and North Macedonia would not be recognized either.
According to data available to this body, approximately 200 diplomas from the University of Tirana and about 550 diplomas from faculties in North Macedonia have been certified since 2018.
Nenad Mitrović, the director of the Coordinating Body, says that only those diplomas that bear the insignia of the Republic of Kosovo are contested.
“Diplomas that do not have the UNMIK seal are considered dubious and are not certified because they contain the name of the so-called Republic of Kosovo. However, there is also the issue of the quality of education in those higher education institutions,” says Mitrović to Radio Free Europe.
Mitrović adds that in 2011, a branch of the Economic Faculty from Subotica was opened in Bujanovac to allow students to study in the city where they live, but year after year, the number of registered students of Albanian nationality is declining, according to him.
Mitrović says that Albanian parties occasionally raise this issue depending on political needs.
“I think their aim is to use it as a political issue—which is certainly not good, because raising such topics for political purposes can increase tensions,” says Mitrović.
According to him, it is necessary to work persistently and patiently to find a way to overcome this problem.
