Belgrade, 10 April 2026
The policy of backsliding on European reforms, alongside anti-European policies and practices of the ruling regime, continues. According to recent news, the European Commission is considering the possibility of suspending the entire financial assistance package for Serbia, amounting to 1.6 billion EUR under the Western Balkans Growth Plan and Serbia’s Reform Agenda. This does not come as a surprise. The authorities are openly and deliberately implementing measures that are in direct contradiction with the demands of students and citizens expressed during numerous protests over the past year, as well as with conditions stemming from Serbia’s EU accession process.
Instead of ensuring political, institutional, and criminal accountability for the tragedy caused by the collapse of the canopy, the authorities have done everything to sabotage the investigative process. Instead of requesting that institutions, particularly the judiciary, carry out their legally mandated responsibilities, the authorities have introduced new judicial amendments (“Mrdić’s law”) which, inter alia, effectively obstruct the work of prosecutors and judiciary, interfere with proceedings in cases of organized crime, and hinder cooperation of the Public Prosecutor’s Office with international partners. Instead of genuinely implementing ODIHR recommendations, the authorities are organizing elections – such as recent local elections – for which independent observers point out that they do not meet the standards of free and fair elections. Instead of respecting university autonomy, the authorities are conducting a campaign of retaliation and discreditation against universities and individual faculties, arresting students, and waging a low-level propaganda campaign against the rector, certain deans, numerous professors, and even the education sector as a whole. Instead of ensuring media freedom and appointing members of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM), the authorities continue operations and pressures aimed at silencing the remaining independent media in Serbia, such as TV N1, Nova S, and others.
The European Movement in Serbia, together with other societal actors, has long been warning about these negative trends, which cannot be concealed by the authorities’ false claims about a “European path.” Serbia is moving in a wrong direction, with accelerated pace of deterioration. The foundations of democratic order, freedom of expression, and the rule of law are under threat. The European Movement in Serbia calls on all societal actors to jointly oppose this trend, which calls into question not only the constitutional order of the Republic of Serbia and the values guaranteed by international and European human rights conventions, but also the fundamental civilizational achievements upon which modern European democracies are built.
