Both Novi Pazar and Petrovac na Mlavi have announced media competitions, though the final list of candidates for the committees is still pending.
The competitions for project co-funding of media content for the year 2026 were announced today by Novi Pazar and Petrovac na Mlavi, although the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications has not yet published the final list of candidates for the members of the project evaluation committees.
Novi Pazar has allocated 31.2 million dinars this year, with the minimum amount that can be awarded per project set at 200,000 dinars and the maximum at 25 million dinars.
Petrovac na Mlavi will distribute six million dinars, with project amounts ranging from 50,000 to 2.5 million dinars.
The deadline for project applications and participation in the evaluation committees is February 26.
We remind you that applications for evaluation committees for projects are not possible until the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications publishes the final list of candidates for the committees in 2026. Currently, a preliminary list has been published, along with the Ministry's appeal not to announce competitions until the list is final.
"We also remind you that all bodies of local self-governments and provinces that conduct public competitions in the field of public information are required to wait for the publication of the final ranking list of candidates for members of the evaluation committees in the field of public information, which is issued by the Ministry, and that until the final ranking list of candidates for committee members is published, they cannot form their committees for project evaluation in this area. After the final ranking list is formed, candidates will have the opportunity to apply for membership in the committees for public information competitions conducted by local self-governments, provinces, and the Ministry," stated the Ministry at that time.
However, prior to these two local governments, Merošina and Žagubica announced competitions, with Žagubica even having a committee appointed after the Ministry's appeal to wait for the final list of candidates for the committees. Moreover, two out of three members of the appointed committee in Žagubica did not apply for project evaluations this year at all.
Journalistic and media associations have requested that the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications immediately publish the biographies of all candidates for committee members for media competitions listed on the published preliminary list, in order to make the process of project co-financing for media content and the distribution of a budget exceeding 15 million euros in 2026 more transparent.
The associations (Association of Independent Electronic Media – ANEM, Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia – NUNS, Journalists' Association of Serbia – UNS, Association of Media and Local Press) pointed out that it is problematic that only the candidates themselves can submit objections to the preliminary scoring list, and only if they notice that they have not been adequately scored by the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications based on the documentation they submitted.
No response has been received from the Ministry, nor have the biographies of potential candidates for committee members been published.
Source: ANEM
The project of the Association of Independent Electronic Media "Participatory Monitoring of the Implementation of the Co-Financing Process for Projects" is supported by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the MATRA program. ANEM is solely responsible for the content and it does not necessarily reflect the official views of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
