What is happening with the media competitions in Preševo, Vrbas, Sjenica, Gadžin Han, and Bujanovac?

The competition in Sjenica was announced back in May, and the project evaluation committee was appointed on October 7. Committee members say they have completed their part of the work, which was also confirmed by the municipality for ANEM.

"We just need to finalize all the documentation and make a decision on the allocation of funds in accordance with the assessments of the committee members," the Sjenica municipality stated, adding that they expect this to be completed during this week.

In Preševo, the situation has become somewhat complicated. Although the competition was announced in April of this year, the committee was formed in May, and the funds have still not been allocated. Committee members for project evaluation who were contacted by ANEM state that they have completed their part of the work and have had no information or contact with the authority that announced the competition since then.

On the other hand, the Preševo municipality officially responded to ANEM's inquiry that at the end of August, the Municipal Council noted that committee members should consider the opinion of the National Council of Albanians when assessing the received applications and that the committee should reconsider its proposal. Specifically, the National Council submitted comments following the committee's funding allocation proposal.

The committee did not respond to this request, and unofficially, the municipality says that the assessment from the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications is that the committee is not obliged to respond to comments after the evaluation process is completed and that they expect a misdemeanor procedure to be initiated against the municipality due to the failure to make a decision on the allocation of funds.

In Vrbas, the competition was announced at the beginning of March. The municipality has not responded to official inquiries from ANEM sent via email, while officials from this local government in Vojvodina that we contacted say they have no information regarding why the project evaluation committee has not yet been appointed and why the funds have not been allocated.

In Gadžin Han, a media competition was announced in April, but, as explained earlier to ANEM by the head of the municipal administration in Gadžin Han, Aleksandar Ranđelović, due to a lack of available funds, they requested an extension of the deadline for the implementation of the relevant competition from the competent ministry.

"All available funds in the municipality of Gadžin Han are being redirected to address water supply issues, which is why a state of emergency has been declared throughout the municipality. The Ministry of Information and Telecommunications has approved the extension of the deadline, and the municipality of Gadžin Han will carry out the competition and other tasks related to the competition within 90 days from the date of lifting the state of emergency, in accordance with the approval from the ministry," states the response from Gadžin Han.

The Municipality of Bujanovac canceled the competition for project co-financing of media content previously announced this year on September 12 and decided to announce a new competition. The deadline for submitting projects was October 3, and there is still no decision on the appointment of the committee, nor on the allocation of funds in the Unified Information System (UIS) of the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications.

To recall, the Municipality of Bujanovac decided on August 11 to reject the committee's proposal for the allocation of funds for the competition for co-financing media content made on June 17. As stated in the conclusion of the Municipal Council, a budget revision was conducted on July 18 for the year 2025, and the funds allocated for the media were reduced from the originally planned three million to 200,000 dinars.

The conclusion recommended that the committee evaluating media projects redistribute funds in accordance with that amount and present a new proposal. However, since this did not happen, the competition was canceled.

Surdulica is the only local government in Serbia that has not announced a media competition for 2025, and the president of the municipality stated to ANEM that projects for 2024 are currently being implemented, that they are preparing to announce a call for 2026 in February, and that there will be no competition for the current year, but the funds will be distributed through "special programs allowed by law."

Other or supplementary competitions are ongoing in Čačak, Novi Sad, and Niš, which were announced in October and November because not all funds planned for this purpose for the current year were allocated during the first cycle.

The results of all competitions in 2025 are available in the database of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM).

Source: ANEM

The project of the Association of Independent Electronic Media “Participatory Monitoring of the Implementation of Project Co-Financing Processes” is supported by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the MATRA program. ANEM is solely responsible for the content, which does not necessarily reflect the official views of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.