With the October 25 parliamentary elections approaching, former Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has intensified his efforts to stifle, and even silence, critical media in the country. The Belgrade-based NGO CRTA has highlighted several worrying practices observed during the pre-election campaign that point to near-total control of the media:

-a stark overrepresentation of the ruling elite on the public service broadcaster Radio Television Serbia (RTS) and on national television channels, with even less airtime for the opposition than in previous election cycles;

-a markedly negative tone towards the Student List;

-manipulative newspaper headlines;

- cyber and bot attacks on critical local media;

-the cloning of independent media websites such as N1 and Vreme.

Moreover, Telekom Serbia, the majority state-owned telecommunications provider that plays a significant role in the media distribution market, continued its expansion. It acquired full ownership of Mondo Inc., publisher of the pro-regime tabloid, Kurir. Mondo’s CEO is a former co-owner of another tabloid, Srpski Telegraf, which is notorious for spreading fake news and disinformation and has repeatedly violated the Journalists’ Code of Ethics.

Alongside these ownership changes, Telekom has moved into terrestrial distribution. In what media experts describe as a breach of the law, it enabled free terrestrial reception of some 30 television channels, including Informer TV, Kurir TV, Blic TV, K1 and Euronews Serbia. As a result, Kurir TV and Informer TV can now be watched via antenna, although neither holds a terrestrial broadcasting license from the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM). During the pre-election campaign alone, Kurir and especially Informer have led the way in spreading fake news, negative content and manipulative narratives about the Student List. It is worth recalling that a new Law on Electronic Media, adopted in October 2023, enabled Telekom Serbia to own and establish media outlets. Journalists’ associations and media experts in both Serbia and the EU widely criticized the move.

This intensifying climate of information control and media capture comes almost two months after Adria News Network was purchased by Alpac Capital. Adria News Network owns the critical independent outlets N1, Nova S, the daily Danas and the weekly Radar. Alpac Capital is a Portuguese investment firm, owned by an ally of Vučić, Pedro Vargas David. His father, Mário David, is a long-time adviser to former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and Vučić has publicly described Mário David as a friend. Serbia’s Commission for the Protection of Competition approved the acquisition in August.

Although the deal has not been fully finalized, its repercussions are already being felt at Nova S. Last month, the channel dropped the popular political satire show 24 Minutes with Zoran Kesić, which has a large audience in Serbia and the diaspora, just ahead of the election campaign. The few remaining critical media outlets were sold just before Vučić had even announced the election date. The timing suggests the sale can be seen as part of the measures Vučić and the ruling elite have deployed to silence critical media and secure victory.

With the Student List enjoying strong support, Vučić and his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) are under mounting pressure that threatens the stability of their rule. With a little more than a week before the vote, the Serbian government has responded with even more repression: on October 13, Marko Stjepanović was appointed editor-in-chief of Nova.rs portal. Employees were given less than 48 hours to either accept the appointment or leave with a severance package. The newsroom fiercely opposed the move, and it was widely seen as the brutal takeover of one of Serbia’s few remaining critical news outlets, one that has objectively provided citizens with the information they need as voters.

For years, the EU has tolerated, and often turned a blind eye, to Vučić’s increasingly autocratic rule and mass repression in exchange for cooperation elsewhere: lithium mining for EU car batteries, cooperation on migration, and the normalization of relations with Kosovo. EU leaders such as EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have drawn sharp criticism for offering high-level praise to Vučić for reforms, particularly on the rule of law.

In an increasingly hostile and repressive environment, where journalists cannot do their work and face smear campaigns and internal pressure, where citizens are deprived of critical and investigative journalism, where students protesting peacefully against government corruption are met with violence, the EU can no longer ignore the blatant deterioration of democracy. It must engage more actively with students, journalists and the opposition to counter authoritarianism and defend democratic freedoms, of which freedom of expression is a crucial part.

Above all, the EU should make its funding conditional on progress in freedom of expression and on alignment with the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA).

Despite some criticisms, the EMFA should serve as a blueprint for media freedom reforms in accession countries, including Serbia. Formal alignment with the EMFA and its recommendations is not enough, however. EU Media watchdogs should work closely with journalists’ associations and media experts in Serbia to monitor how its provisions are enforced. Benchmarks and progress on EMFA alignment must be built into the Commission’s annual progress reports and the EU’s rule-of-law assessments for Serbia.

While the students in Serbia have a real chance of winning the upcoming elections, years of backsliding in media freedom mean that Serbia has a long way to go before its media meet European standards. The media are often regarded as the fourth estate in defending democracy, and they perform a watchdog role in holding politicians to account. Any break with autocratic rule must therefore begin with media reform.