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According to the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", Serbian state statistics disprove a Belgrade legend about the mass exodus of Serbs from Kosovo.
The figures correspond to the decline in Serbia, the article concludes.
Serbia's claim that there is an exodus of Serbs from Kosovo "can be rejected as false, based on the official statistics of the Serbian state", writes Michael Martens, correspondent of the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Belgrade in the issue of Wednesday (07.02.) German newspaper "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung".
Martens says that "the number of Serbs in Kosovo has been in constant decline for years, but the same can be said about the population in Serbia, except for Belgrade, Novi Sad and some other cities". The FAZ correspondent bases this statement on the calculations of the "European Initiative for Stability" (ESI). She reviewed "publicly available government figures that allow fairly accurate conclusions to be drawn about the number of Serbs."
ESI analyzes e.g. Serbia's health insurance figures. According to them "in 2017 there were still 109,000 insured Serbs in Kosovo", but "six years later there were less than 107,000". From this it appears that the decrease for Kosovo is 2.4%, but for Serbia itself, "the decrease in the same period was 2.9%."
The Statistics Office of Serbia, citing FAZ, reports a drastic decrease in the number of (Serbian) students attending primary schools in Kosovo: from 14,500 in 2004 to 10,700 in 2021. But in Serbia the decrease is the same: "here according to according to official state data, the figures fell by 23%.
[Kosovo, Merdare | Parliamentary elections in Serbia 2023 | Serbs from Kosovo on their way to the polling stations] [Kosovo, Merdare | Parliamentary elections in Serbia 2023 | Serbs from Kosovo on their way to the polling stations]
Serbs from Kosovo on their way to the polling stations, Kosovo, Merdare, 2023Photo: Valdrin Xhemaj/REUTERS Regarding pensions, in the last 11 years, Serbia has paid 6.3% less pensions in Kosovo, while in Serbia it paid 2.6% less. But ESI and FAZ remember that "the most important employer for Kosovo Serbs is the state. The fact that Serbs leave Kosovo upon reaching retirement age is not new. For decades there has been an "exodus of pensioners" from Kosovo".
"The demographic evolution of the Serbian minority in Kosovo has been in line with general trends across Southeast Europe for years. As a result of a combination of low birth rates, high emigration and a lack of attraction for emigration, the population is declining in all the countries of the region", concludes FAZ.
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