Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic accused the rector of Belgrade University (BU) Vladan Djokic of terrorism and said that no member of the Serbian Progressive Party in the Serbian government wants to vote for university enrollment quotas, RSE reported.

“There is enormous dissatisfaction within the largest party with the results of the negotiations with Djokic, who showed complete irresponsibility, recklessness, and participated in the attempt to bring down the state,” Vucic said at a press conference on June 29.

He added that SNS members “will not talk to terrorists and those who destroyed the country, and Jokic is one of them.”

University rector Vladan Djokic was one of the speakers at the mass student protest held in Slavia Square.

He is one of the members of the academic community who from the very beginning supported the student blockades of the faculty, which began after the death of 16 people in the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad in November 2024.

In mid-April, Djokic was summoned by the police for questioning as a citizen as part of an investigation into abuse of office.

At the time, he insisted that he had not committed any crime.

In recent months, several other university professors who supported the student blockades have been detained by police on suspicion of abuse of office.

In this regard, Vucic stressed that “no member of the SNC in the government will vote” on the determination of enrollment quotas for faculties.

The determination of quotas for the enrolment of a new generation of students in state faculties is one of the demands of part of the academic community, which has united around the “Rebellious University” initiative. This initiative blocked the intersection in front of the Serbian government in the centre of Belgrade for 17 days.

The other two demands of the academic community are the dissolution of the Working Group for the Draft Law on Higher Education and a public debate on this law, as well as the repeal of the amendments to the Ordinance on Labor Standards in Universities, on the basis of which, instead of the current 20 working hours per week for scientific activity, they were reduced to five.

Serbian Prime Minister Djuro Macut held several meetings with the rector of the University of Serbia, Vladan Djokic. At its meeting on June 11, the government dissolved the Working Group for the Drafting of the Higher Education Act.

There is only a verbal agreement on the quotas for enrolling the new generation of students, without signatures or seals on the official document. |BGNES