Four members wrote to the international community: The REM Council has been formally constituted but is essentially blocked.

The letter is addressed to the ambassador and head of the European Union Delegation to the Republic of Serbia, Andreas von Beckerath, the head of the OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission in Serbia, the head of the OSCE Mission in Serbia, Jan Bratu, the OSCE representative for media freedom, Marta Kos, the European Commissioner for Enlargement, Tonino Picula, the rapporteur of the European Parliament for Serbia, the head of the Council of Europe Office in Belgrade, as well as bodies in the Council of the European Union and the European Commission, heads of EU member state missions in Serbia, and the embassies of the USA, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Switzerland.

We are conveying the letter in its entirety:

Dear representatives of the international community,

We are addressing you as four members of the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media of Serbia (REM) to highlight developments that directly affect the integrity of the current electoral process.

We returned to the Council despite serious concerns regarding the process through which the Council was elected, as well as documented issues related to the independence and potential conflicts of interest of several other members. We did this so that Serbia would not enter the election campaign without a functional media regulator. We believed it was our responsibility to exhaust every possibility for REM to begin fulfilling its legally prescribed role.

The first substantive test came immediately.

On September 10, before the Council was constituted, the REM service began monitoring the election campaign using a sample inherited from the 2023 monitoring methodology. Currently, eleven television channels are being monitored. TV Informer is not among them.

At the Council meeting on September 22, Rodoljub Šabić proposed that Informer be included in the monitoring. The Council agreed that all members should submit proposals for expanding the monitoring sample within 72 hours.

What followed is very important.

All eight Council members subsequently expressed in writing that Informer should be included in the monitoring sample.

However, at the moment when a formal decision was to be made on September 28, four members changed their position. The vote ended with a result of 4 - 4. No decision was made, and Informer will therefore remain outside the systemic monitoring of the election campaign conducted by REM.

The situation is particularly serious because previous concerns regarding independence and potential conflicts of interest are no longer abstract. Serbian law requires members of the REM Council not only to possess professional qualifications but also to have a public reputation based on advocacy for freedom of expression, human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, and prohibits behavior that calls into question the reputation, autonomy, or independence of the Regulator.

This development indicates direct political influence on four members of the REM Council and must also be viewed in light of previous assessments by the European Commission.

In its July 2026 document, the Information Note on Recent Developments in Serbia Related to Cluster 3, the Commission stated, regarding the process of electing REM, that “the authorities and Parliament have taken a constructive approach and undertaken the necessary technical steps that were under their control.”

We believe that what has transpired since then necessitates a reassessment of such an evaluation, as it is essential to make a clear distinction between the formal constitution of REM and the existence of a functional and independent regulator.

Our participation in the work of the Council should not be interpreted as confirmation that the issues surrounding its election have been resolved. Nor should our willingness to compromise to allow the institution to begin functioning be used as evidence that REM is functioning normally.

On the contrary, we entered the institution to verify whether it can fulfill its legal role. The first substantive test has clearly shown that this is difficult to achieve.

Therefore, we call on the European Union, OSCE/ODIHR, and other international actors monitoring elections in Serbia to formally record this development and take it into account in all assessments of the electoral process.

The inability of the media regulator to apply objective monitoring criteria to one major broadcaster during the election campaign most directly jeopardizes media pluralism, the equality of electoral participants, equal conditions in the electoral competition, and the ability of citizens to make a free and informed electoral decision.

This pattern cannot be treated as an internal disagreement within REM. It must be taken as evidence that the conditions for free and fair elections have not been met.

We will continue to utilize every available legal mechanism to demand that REM fulfill its legally prescribed duties. We will also publicly disclose any instance in which the Council has been prevented from doing so.

Our participation must not be used as evidence of the democratic legitimacy of the elections.

Respectfully,

Members of the REM Council:

Dubravka Valić Nedeljković

Ira Prodanov Krajišnik

Mileva Malešić

Rodoljub Šabić

Source: N1