Analysis of the Co-Financing Process for Media Content Production Projects in Serbia in 2025

Although the amount of money for media projects this year has been slightly increased compared to the previous year, it cannot be said, given the distribution of funds, that it will truly be utilized for the purpose of serving the public interest.

Despite all efforts to improve the process and prevent abuses, the greatest Achilles' heel of the entire process remains the composition of the commissions, and thus the distribution of budget funds.

Firstly, the problematic scoring method for candidates for commission members in 2025 marked a wrong initial step, which served as a basis for later manipulations in forming commissions and distributing funds.

This year's candidate scoring process saw media experts and candidates from journalistic and media associations close to the authorities receiving the highest scores, while representatives of relevant media and journalistic associations were largely sidelined. Even when selected for commissions, they often found themselves in the minority, thus their project scoring had little impact on the final distribution.

This project year was certainly marked by certain media experts who, given their high scores, were appointed to nearly every commission they applied for, with some being part of several dozen commissions. When you add the appointment of at least one representative from associations whose sole activity is the appointment of commission members, rather than the protection of journalists and the advancement of the profession, we arrive at, at the very least, problematic results of the competition, as presented in this analysis.

Although the Law passed in 2023 changed the system of applications to commissions and scoring, the authorities still found a way to give preference to these representatives, thus ensuring the distribution of funds to media outlets close to them.

Relevant journalistic and media associations closely monitored the project co-financing process this year as well, but unfortunately, as in previous years, the positions, appeals, and reactions of these associations regarding irregularities mostly had no effect.

The project year behind us was certainly marked by the initiation of the Unified Information System, but also in a direction that did not lead to an improvement or facilitation of the project cycle, but rather the opposite.

Poor technical solutions have allowed, whether accidentally or intentionally, for the transparency of this process to remain at a low level, complicated by long procedures, additional documentation, hidden changes to data, dates, and documentation, weak communication with technical support, and overall, it can be freely said, harassment of all participants in the process.

Project co-financing for the production of media content in the area of public interest has regressed several steps this year.

In order to improve this process and for it to fulfill its essence, political will is primarily necessary, followed by a serious analysis and amendment of existing regulations - laws and rules, to avoid the abuses that occurred this year as well.

The full analysis is available at this link.

The analysis was created as part of the project of the Association of Independent Electronic Media “Participatory Monitoring of the Project Co-Financing Process” supported by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the MATRA program. ANEM is solely responsible for the content of the analysis, and this content does not necessarily reflect the official views of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. 

The analysis was created in collaboration with the Journalists' Association of Serbia (UNS). The author of the analysis is Kristina Kovač Nastasić, the chief and responsible editor of the UNS website.