Serbia's EU Path Blocked by Failure to Form Media Watchdog

Serbia's path toward European Union membership is stalled by its failure to establish a functional Regulatory Body for Electronic Media (REM), a key requirement for opening EU accession clusters. The REM council has been non-operational for 19 months, with political maneuvering and disagreements over the independence of its members blocking its formation.

Maja Stojanović of Civic Initiatives highlighted that all nine REM council members should be independent. However, she explained that the government appears to favor a system where four members are independent, four are aligned with the state, and one represents national minorities. This approach, she stated, allows the ruling party to control the council's decisions.

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We now have both processes stopped, a status quo, nothing has happened, the law continues to be broken because we don't have REM.

Stojanović detailed how the process for selecting candidates has been repeatedly stalled. Last year, nine candidates were chosen, but one was not elected in the Assembly. The government then restarted the process for the ninth member and four independent candidates, some of whom withdrew due to dissatisfaction with the proposed REM structure. "We now have both processes stopped, a status quo, nothing has happened, the law continues to be broken because we don't have REM," Stojanović said.

She added that while the law doesn't explicitly forbid not electing a candidate, the process leading up to the selection has been questionable. "We must find a solution for how the law is applied in this process," she urged, noting a divergence between the EU's and the government's interpretation of legal application, with the government seeking loopholes.

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We must find a solution for how the law is applied in this process.