Šabić: REM Developments Clearly Show Authorities Do Not Want the Regulator to Exist

After three rounds of voting, Serbia’s Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media still has no council president. Rodoljub Šabić says the stalemate sends a clear message: the authorities do not want REM to exist.

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All these developments clearly confirm that our authorities do not want REM to exist at all.

Speaking on N1 television, the REM council member said he was not optimistic about the next constitutive session. In his view, the council’s formation with four independent members resulted from pressure by the international community and Serbia’s obligations to it.

Šabić said the electronic media law had been drafted in close cooperation with the European Union and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, with experts and funding from both involved. It had been presented as an “epoch-making step,” he said, but the subsequent disputes suggested that the authorities did not want the regulator to operate.

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After all these complications, which in my view clearly confirm that our authorities do not want REM to exist at all.

According to Šabić, one side insisted that Miloš Garić had to become council president. Garić failed to secure the required votes in two ballots. Several compromise proposals were rejected, including replacing the candidates, appointing co-presidents who would alternate in leading sessions, and selecting a president and deputy by drawing lots. At the latest session, that same group proposed three candidates, including Garić, but all four members again voted for Garić, Šabić said, describing the move as an attempt to mislead them.

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The other side had only one solution: the president of the REM Council must be Mr. Miloš Garić.

Šabić rejected the suggestion that participating in the body legitimizes a regulator that is not doing its job. He said its service should independently monitor election campaigns, regardless of the council’s internal structure, and report observed irregularities to the media, citizens and the wider Serbian public.

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Is it better to have someone in that body who insists that the body, which has the resources, conduct at least some monitoring of the election campaign?