While students were holding a mass protest in Belgrade’s Slavija Square on May 23 this year, a more modest gathering was taking place some 400 kilometers to the south, in Kumanovo, North Macedonia.
Several hundred people gathered in Kumanovo, carrying Macedonian and Serbian flags and wearing T-shirts bearing the Serbian Progressive Party’s (SNS) slogan, “Serbia Is Winning.”
The event was organized by a local association called Peace, Harmony, Stability — a name that unmistakably resembles the SNS’s 2022 election slogan, “Peace, Stability, Vučić,” the same year the association was founded.
“This is a gathering organized with one single goal — to show support for the President of the Republic of Serbia, Mr. Aleksandar Vučić, and to encourage him to persevere on his path toward peace, harmony, stability and unity,” the association’s president, Maja Denkovska, told Newsmax Balkan.
Just 38 days before the gathering, her association had received €3,400 from the Diaspora Administration within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Orthodox religious projects, as Nova ekonomija first reported. Several weeks later, the Administration awarded the association another €2,500 for an initiative to preserve the Cyrillic alphabet.
Over the past three years, Serbia’s Diaspora Administration has paid at least €250,000 to Serbian diaspora organizations in North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia that publicly promote the SNS, repeat Russian narratives, glorify war criminals or advocate right-wing, anti-gender rhetoric, according to an investigation by BIRN.
Neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Diaspora Administration responded to requests for comment.
Denkovska declined to speak to BIRN, citing health problems. Over the past year, she has spoken to Informer several times, expressing astonishment that anyone in Serbia could be dissatisfied with Aleksandar Vučić and the SNS.
In April last year, her association provided free buses and sandwiches to transport people from Kumanovo to Belgrade for a Serbian Progressive Party rally.
The association has repeatedly brought people from North Macedonia to SNS rallies held across Serbia over the past two years.
Online support for the SNS
Peace, Harmony, Stability is not the only recipient of Diaspora Administration funding from North Macedonia that supports Aleksandar Vučić’s government.
As president of the Community of Serbs in Macedonia – Bitola, Zoran Žugić regularly criticizes student protests in Serbia and the Serbian election-monitoring organization CRTA. He has also promoted online content denying the Srebrenica genocide.
Since 2023, Žugić’s Community of Serbs in Macedonia – Bitola has received €21,300 from the Administration.
He denied that the money had been received for political purposes.
“These are exclusively projects related to culture, folklore, commemorations of historical dates, sporting events and similar activities — none of which have anything to do with political developments,” Žugić said.
The Serbian Cultural Center – Skopje, whose president, Vasilka Kitanović, regularly publishes SNS content, has received even more — €84,500 since 2023. Kitanović did not respond to requests for comment.
Serbia funds organizations with a “malign influence”
Within Serbia itself, the Diaspora Administration regularly directs money to local organizations that claim to support the Serbian diaspora in the region.
The association Izražajnost, for example, received a total of €23,800 in 2023–2024 for two projects promoting the use of the Cyrillic alphabet.
The organization’s representative is actor Milan Bosiljčić, who was among numerous public figures to sign statements of support for the SNS in 2023.
In 2024, the Administration awarded €9,400 to the association Jeremija, co-founded by Bosiljčić’s daughter Sara, to fund a language camp. The association’s first project, which was not funded by the Administration, was carried out in cooperation with Solidarité Kosovo, an organization founded by SNS member Arno Gujon, who was then head of the Administration.
Since 2023, the Belgrade Center for Education and Youth Development (CEROB) has received nearly €34,000 from the Administration for camps for young people from the diaspora.
At the end of 2023, the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS) reported that SNS activists were being paid in cash for their work in the party’s call centers at CEROB’s offices in Belgrade.
A year later, CEROB representative Ognjen Kočević was appointed by the Serbian government to the Management Board of the Institute for the Evaluation of the Quality of Education.
The Administration also awarded a total of €13,600 for two projects run by the Association of Students of Republika Srpska in Serbia.
During the 2024 local elections in Novi Sad, members of the association were filmed working in an SNS call center at the Novi Sad Fair, where party operatives used voter registers to monitor turnout.
Last year, the Administration gave €8,500 to the Association of War Veterans of Serbian Lands 1990–1999 for summer camps for young people. The association’s leader, Željko Vukelić, had previously sparked public outrage by sending children aged 11 to 15 to military camps in Russia in 2017, where they were taught to handle weapons.
None of the associations mentioned above responded to requests for comment.
Political scientist Duško Radosavljević said these flows of money reflected the SNS’s roots in the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, of which Vučić was a key member during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, until 2008, when he broke away and founded the SNS.
“It must not be overlooked that this regime has carried a pronounced ideological hallmark from its very beginning — an extreme right-wing stance,” Radosavljević said.
“This is a regime rooted in the Serbian Radical Party, one of the most repulsive political formations in Serbia. It exerts a malign influence fueled by disputes with neighboring countries, nationalism and support for war crimes.”
The rest of the article can be read on BIRN.
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Source: BIRN Foto: AP Photo
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