Analysis of the co-financing process for media content production projects in Serbia in 2026.

Project co-financing of media content production in 2026 has shown that the system has not only failed to achieve its intended purpose but has also strayed almost completely from it.

After twelve years of implementing this model and one year since the latest amendments to the Law on Public Information and Media and the Regulations on Project Co-Financing, it is clear that the problem is no longer insufficiently precise regulations, but rather their selective application, the absence of institutional oversight, and the complete lack of accountability for obvious abuses.

An analysis of the implementation of the competition in 2026 shows that almost none of the key problems identified in previous years have been resolved. On the contrary, many have deepened. Delays in announcing competitions and making decisions, subsequent changes to data in the Unified Information System, inconsistent application of regulations, multiple engagements of the same commission members, ignoring obvious conflicts of interest, funding media established just before the competition announcement, as well as the concentration of public funds among a small number of publishers close to the authorities, can no longer be viewed as isolated oversights. They represent a pattern of functioning within the system.

Particularly concerning is the fact that the regulatory framework changes from 2025 primarily served as a façade of reform. Although presented as a response to alignment with European recommendations, they did not eliminate the causes of the most significant abuses. Proposals from relevant journalism and media associations aimed at improving transparency, preventing manipulation in the selection of commissions, and ensuring more efficient operation of the Unified Information System were not accepted. The result of such an approach is that 2026 confirmed everything the expert public has been warning about for years—that formal changes in regulations without the political will for their consistent application cannot produce substantive changes.

The data presented in this analysis also indicate that project co-financing is increasingly serving less to achieve the public interest and more as a mechanism for distributing public funds to a favored circle of media and publishers.

At the same time, professional local and independent media, which have been receiving support for the production of content of public interest through this system for years, are left without funding or receive only symbolic amounts, often despite long-term work, professional references, and significance to local communities.

For the first time since the introduction of project co-financing, not a single project from relevant journalism and media associations and organizations received support in the competitions of the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications, while funds were allocated to organizations and media close to the authorities.

Simultaneously, the fact that ANEM, UNS, and other relevant associations were forced to establish their own registers of competitions, databases of results, and registers of commission members in order for the public to follow the process at all, serves as the best evidence that the Unified Information System has not fulfilled the primary goal for which it was established.

Instead of being an instrument of transparency, the UIS has become yet another obstacle to effective public oversight of the expenditure of nearly two billion dinars of public funds.

Particularly troubling is the fact that a large number of documented irregularities throughout the entire project cycle went unaddressed by the institutions responsible for them. When journalism and media associations pointed out conflicts of interest among commission members, illegalities in the operation of public authorities, or obvious violations of regulations, responses were generally lacking.

This practice further erodes trust in the legality of the entire system.

For all the reasons mentioned above, it can be concluded that 2026 represented the most drastic example of the undermining of the project co-financing institute since its introduction in 2015.

The system that was supposed to promote media pluralism, professional journalism, and the realization of public interest has largely become an instrument for politically motivated distribution of public funds.

Without ensuring consistent application of regulations, effective oversight of the work of public authorities and competition commissions, as well as real accountability for abuses, project co-financing will lose even the little sense it has managed to retain until now.

This will not only threaten the survival of a large number of professional, especially local media, but also the right of citizens to be informed in accordance with the public interest, for which this system was established and which was indeed, along with media privatization, one of the most important media reforms implemented in Serbia since 2000.

The full analysis can be downloaded at this link.

The analysis was created within the project of the Association of Independent Electronic Media "Participatory Monitoring of the Implementation 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, which does not necessarily reflect the official views of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

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