Members of the REM Council rejected the call for their return until conditions are met.

To remind, the parliamentary Committee for Culture and Information suspended the procedure for proposing a member of the Council of the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media, which is nominated by national minorities, and called upon the four members who submitted their resignations – Rodoljub Šabić, Mileva Malešević, Ira Prodanov Krajišnik, and Dubravka Valić Nedeljković – to resume their functions at the REM.

The chairwoman of the committee from the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), Nevena Đurić, stated before the vote that the announcement of regular elections for the councils of national minorities is approaching and that in such circumstances, "there are justified reasons" to wait for the elections of the ninth member of the REM Council "until the new councils of national minorities are constituted."

The committee also accepted that the newly formed REM Council would draft a new Statute for the REM.

The members of the REM Council who resigned reacted to the conclusion of the Committee for Culture and Information from June 25, which called upon them to return to their functions.

"It is undoubtedly good that the Committee's conclusion confirms that the authorities have abandoned the persistent illegal and discriminatory favoritism of a single candidate. We assess the decision to proceed with the drafting of a new version of the REM Statute in the same way; this time we hope for a transparent and inclusive procedure," they stated in a letter.

They emphasized that they believed Serbia needed the REM and that there was a realistic possibility for the REM Council to be constituted in a way that is certainly better than the previous one.

"Our willingness to contribute to this is not in question; it never has been. For a relatively long period, we have been striving for this to happen, of course, only in accordance with the law. At the moment when it seemed impossible, we submitted our resignations," they said in the letter.

The Committee's conclusion removes what was the reason for submitting the resignations, they added.

"If this had been done in a timely manner, those resignations would not have happened. However, in the changed situation following the resignations and a series of illegal actions that ensued, the call for us to withdraw our resignations and return to our functions is based on an incorrect interpretation of the legal provisions, both regarding the legal consequences of submitted resignations and those concerning the postponement of elections. Such an interpretation effectively changes the explicit provisions of the law, and such a thing is not legally feasible by the Committee's conclusion," they stated.

As they emphasized, for this reason, they believe that the Committee's conclusion alone is not sufficient for their further action, as the Committee is not competent to resolve the legal ambiguities that have arisen, but rather the National Assembly.

"Only if the aforementioned issues are resolved in accordance with the law, would the conditions be created for us to assume the functions to which we were elected," they added.

The letter is signed by the members of the REM Council who were elected at the session of the National Assembly on November 12 of last year and who submitted their resignations. They are responding to the conclusion of the Committee for Culture and Information from June 25, 2026, which called upon them to return to their functions: Mileva Malešić, Rodoljub Šabić, Ira Prodanov Krajišnik, and Dubravka Valić Nedeljković.

Rodoljub Šabić, Mileva Malešević, Ira Prodanov Krajišnik, and Dubravka Valić Nedeljković submitted their resignations for those positions on December 19 of last year at the office of the National Assembly of Serbia.

The Committee adopted the opinion of the expert service that there are no legal obstacles for these four members to provide a statement accepting the position, considering that their resignations have not been verified by the National Assembly of Serbia.

Source: N1