Citizen’s Movement Solidarity at the 15th Korčula School

We have joined the CEE Network for Gender Issues.

The Citizen’s Movement Solidarity participated in the 15th Korčula School, a think tank of the Central and Eastern European Network for Gender Issues (CEE Network for Gender Issues), held from 27 to 29 August 2026 on the island of Korčula. This year’s theme was Losing Ground, Gaining Voice: Rethinking Feminist Resistance in an Age of Populist Backlash 2.0.

For fifteen years, the Korčula School has brought together politicians from social democratic and progressive parties, feminists, experts and civil society actors, particularly from the Western Balkans. It is an open space where politics is examined through a gender lens — and where the Western Balkans is not treated as Europe’s periphery, but as part of its democratic project.

Since 1994, the CEE Network has connected women’s organisations, social democratic parties, civil society organisations and individuals, primarily from the Western Balkans, creating pathways towards the European and broader social democratic community. Its mission remains the same: empowering women and integrating gender equality into the strategies, policies and programmes of left-wing, progressive and social democratic forces.

The Citizen’s Movement Solidarity was founded just over a year ago and has already found its place alongside social democratic parties that share the CEE Network’s mission. For a movement from Serbia committed to freedom, solidarity and the defence of democratic institutions, joining this circle is not a matter of prestige. It is a political fact: we are not alone, we are not an afterthought, and gender equality is not an addition to the programme — it is a condition of democracy.

At Korčula, discussions focused on political and institutional responses to gender equality, feminist strategy, and how progressive forces can respond to the advance of right-wing populism and attacks on civilisational progress in the field of gender equality.

“The struggle for gender equality may seem endless. Perhaps that is not merely a difficulty or a challenge, but a characteristic of what drives the world — its inner dynamic, constantly pushing civilisation to become better. The Korčula School 2026 demonstrates how the world is evolving and how crucial the role of social democratic parties is to Europe’s future. Today, more than ever, Europe is a space that questions, rethinks and offers ideas and solutions in a world that seems stuck or even moving backwards. Someone at our sessions, a speaker from Serbia, said that men are moving towards positions of power, leaving education, and even the judiciary, to women. This is absolutely true. Men are concentrating in business, technology and, if I may add, in regional and global efforts to resolve conflicts and wars, in conflict management. In doing so, spaces have opened up in which women are keeping the world from falling apart — work we have always done. But this space is not merely about maintaining the status quo. It is a place of real power — conflict prevention. Particularly in education, the most important field of influence and leadership in society. Women around the world are becoming dominant when it comes to higher education degrees. They are also becoming increasingly important in science. In Serbia, for the past sixteen years, those in power have trampled on gender equality, while the Serbian Orthodox Church has attacked it without restraint. This campaign led to the ‘temporary’ suspension by the Constitutional Court of the 2021 Gender Equality Law. When the regime in Serbia changes, one of the most important tasks for society will be to establish a new executive institutional mechanism for gender equality, so that we can continue from where democratic Serbia was stopped in 2012. To start again and catch up with the region and wider Europe. I sincerely hope that this time, no one will interrupt us.”

Tamara PetrovićSecretary General, Citizen’s Movement Solidarity