Serbia

Country Overview

Since 2012 Serbia’s political system has been characterized by the dominance of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and extremely overbearing position of President Aleksandar Vučić. The executive dominates the legislative branch and exerts pressure on the judiciary, which has resulted in democratic backsliding, weakening of the rule of law and pervasive corruption. During the snap 2023 parliamentary, provincial, and local elections, as well as the regular 2024 local elections, many domestic and international observers raised serious complaints about electoral irregularities. The OSCE ODIHR mission observing the elections made numerous recommendations for improving the election process. After November 1, 2024, when the canopy at the newly renovated railway station in Novi Sad collapsed, killing sixteen people, Serbian students have led the ongoing massive protests and blockades, and submitted a list of demands to the authorities to find and punish those responsible. The protesters apply the principle of direct democracy against corruption and the captured institutions.

According to the latest available report, citizens of Serbia show a low level of trust in the media, with 65% of those who often and occasionally try to avoid the news. The main sources of information are television and online portals of traditional media, while more than half of citizens use social networks as a source of information. The Public Media Service (RTS) continues to be cited as the most trusted media outlet. Demographic factors predominantly determine citizens’ orientation towards the type and variety of news sources – 54% of the population over 65 exclusively use traditional media. A state-owned Telekom Srbija company is a dominant player in telecommunications but also in the media market, creating unfair competition in the internal media market and the advertising market. Thanks to a special law provision from 2023 that directly governs companies that perform electronic communications activities to establish media outlets, the Telekom company has been enabled to purchase and establish media. This way, the concentration of the media market under the state-party control is growing, seeming to lead to the establishment of a new state-party media conglomerate in Serbia.

The changes of media legislative from 2023 have only partially complied with the EU regulatory framework and with the national 2020 Media Strategy, and there were no changes in 2024. The implementation of these new legal provisions has been selective and inconsistent, so the high dependence of the media on political and ownership influences remained. The Regulatory Authority of Electronic Media (REM) has not achieved its independence and emancipation from the state administration system. The biggest challenge was tied to the legal implementation of REM Council members appointment procedure, that should have been transparent and democratic to minimize the risk of political interference. REM adopted fifteen byregulations in May 2024, beyond consultations that merited more meaningful discussion. Serbia has not aligned its legislation with the OSCE/ODIHR, and GRECO recommendations. The Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government started the process of amending the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance in September 2024, without representatives from the civil sector in the working group. In December 2024, the Government published the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Public Media Service, that largely deviated from the spirit and letter of the Media Strategy. It does not prescribe either financial or organizational guarantees that could bring the public media service out of the captive position. In the field of transparency of ownership structures and of advertising from state resources, lack of effectiveness jeopardizes the legal changes introduced in 2023. Moreover, the sustainability and integrity of local media has been undermined.

Fundamental Protection

The Fundamental Protection area scores within the medium-high risk band. Key points include:

• Protection of the right to the freedom of expression faces medium-high risk mostly due to the pressures by the government officials who publicly comment on the work of the journalists as well as of the judicial branch, although the media and judiciary are nominally independent.
• The number of SLAPPs has increased, hindering the work of investigative media. The legislation has not yet put in place specific anti-SLAPP regulation nor have laws and judicial practices on the ‘protection of reputation’ complied with international standards on freedom of expression.
• While restrictions on the internet were minimal, pro-government news media and trolls engage in disinformation campaigns. This is partly the result of existing huge gaps in the regulatory framework that refers to digital media environment.
• Regarding the protection of the right to information, the progress has also eluded since the current political regime is extremely unfavourable: besides ‘administrative silence’, the problem occurs since information ‘leaks’ from state institutions towards powerful individuals whose business is subject of interest of whistleblowers or investigative journalists, which is considered a specific form of pressure.
• Journalists continue to work in very difficult conditions, being the target of many attacks and pressures. The acquittal of Slavko Ćuruvija’s four murder suspects ‘fails to send a clear message that attacks and violations of journalists’ safety and rights will not be tolerated’.
• The rise of incidents against journalists in the reported period is most obvious through physical and verbal attacks. The most frequent targets of online and offline threats, bullying and harassment are journalists who work for independent or pro-opposition media. It was discovered that police and intelligence authorities illegally used advanced phone spyware to target journalists in a covert surveillance campaign.
• National regulatory authority REM fails to fulfill its functions independently and non-discriminatory in line with the Law on Electronic Media, undermining media pluralism and democracy in Serbia. Moreover, the competent National Assembly’s committee obstructed implementation of the Law for several times during the REM Council appointment procedure in 2024, showing a complete lack of will to free REM from the state-party control.

Market Plurality

The Market Plurality area is associated with a customarily high risk. Key points include:

• A full transparency of media ownership is still not provided. Despite the new improved law, the same opaque ownership structures continue to be used to obfuscate the true ownership of many media outlets. Besides, there are many unregistered online platforms, that often act like a spreader of disinformation.
• Plurality of media providers is under high risk partly due to the lack of regular market analyses with precise, comparable and consolidated data on revenues in all media industry sectors by regulatory authority and the industry associations. Additional problem is the fact that no separate assessment on mergers (media plurality test) is prescribed to evaluate the impact of the concentrations in the media market on media pluralism.
• Plurality in digital markets is under the highest particular risk. Although Serbia is considered one of the rapidly growing markets in the digital technology sphere, DMA does not apply in Serbia, and there are no rules updating the competition and regulation framework to the digital markets and addressing the power of digital gatekeepers or very large online platforms. The lack of official data on market and audience shares additionally increases the risks.
• Media viability remains fragile. Mostly tabloid media have a sustainable business model, adapted to the digital environment by publishing many low-quality, ‘clickbait’ content. In addition, these media are largely supported by budget money, because they are connected to the ruling elite through clientelist relations. In general, the public support schemes do not produce positive and proportionate effects to media pluralism. The editorial independence is heavily jeopardized by commercial and owners influence, but also by political pressures.
• There are no efficient legal guaranties for editorial independence, nor internal regulations to distinctly separate newsrooms from management and ownership within private media internal organization.

Political Independence

The Political Independence area registered a high-risk band, as the most endangered area among the four assessed. One of its indicators – Political independence of the media records a very high-risk score, three are within a high-risk band, while the best placed indicator has medium-high risk assessment. Key points include:

• There are no regulatory safeguards to prevent from conflict of interest between media owners and politicians. All private broadcasters with national coverage are owned or controlled by entities close to the ruling SNS party. To make matters worse, political control in electronic media is potentially growing stronger by the legalised return of the state to media ownership.
• Editorial policy of the media is heavily influenced by political and financial players who control the advertising market. The state-party machinery exercises influence over private media mostly through public subsidies. This is exacerbated by the nature of state advertising, which effectively functions as a subset of subsidy, with minimal requirements to disclose expenses and advertising incomes.
• The inappropriate influences are facilitated by the lack of legal mechanisms that could protect editorial independence from political and owners’ influence.
• During 2024 electoral campaign, public and private national broadcasters put the representatives of the government and the opposition into extremely unequal position, further tilting the ‘playing field’. The issue of functionaries’ campaign is still not systemically but only partially regulated, while the running of a political campaign and transparency of campaign costs on social networks is not regulated at all.
• Even though mechanism of budget funding was improved by legislative changes in 2023, the state subsidies are mostly distributed unfairly over the reporting period, distorting the media market.
• Serbian public media services still fail to provide a balanced coverage of diverse political actors and views, holding opposition representatives beyond fair access to their broadcasting, particularly outside the election campaign period.

Social Inclusiveness

The Social Inclusiveness area is situated within a high-risk band. Key points include:

• Since new media legislation stipulated that the public broadcaster must adapt its content to the people with disabilities, more progress was expected than was achieved in this regard.
• Hate speech is prohibited by law. However, due to insufficient application of existing legal frameworks and a lack of obligations for VSPs and VLOPs in line with the DSA, the digital space abounds with aggressive communication, threats and insults.
• In Serbia, there are increasingly more areas in which the lack of media pluralism at the local level is identified. In such environments, citizens are poorly informed about problems in their community because many of the media report one-sidedly and non-objectively, favouring local governments. Above all, community media are not explicitly recognized in the Serbian regulatory framework as a special kind of media.
• Gender inequality is widespread in Serbian media environment. In general, media do not have developed plans for gender equality. Even the public media codes do not recognize obstacles and non-stimulative environment, nor do they have the instruments to monitor this topic or to encourage a more equal or quality work environment for all the employees.
• Media and information literacy is still underdeveloped, and its effects are very limited to one group of people. The civil sector turns out to be a ‘pillar of media literacy in Serbia. A more comprehensive state approach through the system of compulsory education is needed, as well as support to the concept of non-formal education.