Serbia’s new Council of the Regulatory Authority for Digital Media, REM, held its first constitutive session on Monday but failed to elect a president. The Council is gentle no longer gentle entirely as its ninth member has no longer been elected but.
The old REM Council’s mandate expired in November 2024. Since then, Serbia’s parliament has failed to appoint a brand new Council. The need route of was once marked by deal of allegations of irregularities. Setting up a entirely operational REM Council was once one amongst the European Union’s key requires for Serbia as allotment of its rule-of-regulations duties in its EU accession route of.
The institution of the brand new Council was once enabled after four members who had previously resigned agreed to judge their positions earlier in July.
Eight members of the brand new REM Council had been elected in November 2025. Nonetheless, the ruling majority in parliament didn’t vote for the ninth member, who was once to be chosen from representatives of nationwide minorities. Claiming that the ruling majority had sabotaged the election due to the their hottest candidate would no longer be chosen, four of the elected members resigned in December final 365 days.
Nonetheless, on July 10, parliament adopted an interpretation of the Legislation on Digital Media clarifying that the resignations had no ethical attain. Following this, the four members agreed to rob up their seats on the REM Council, paving the methodology for it to be formally constituted.
On Monday, two candidates for the president’s role, Mileva Malesic and Milos Garic, won the identical change of votes. Malesic was once among the candidates who had resigned in December 2025.
Afterwards, Dubravka Valic Nedeljkovic, who chaired the assembly, talked about consultations would continue and a brand new session would be held soon.
“Till a president or chairperson is elected, the oldest member of the Council, which is me, will preside except a consensus is reached,” Valic Nedeljkovic talked about, adding that a president ought to be elected earlier than the Council can open to address the predominant disorders touching on the REM.
EU experiences on Serbia compile persistently urged the REM Council to be established and begin working. The newest Rule of Legislation Roar, revealed in July, talked about: “Serbia’s audiovisual market persisted to face serious challenges within the absence of a functioning resolution-making physique of the Regulatory Authority for Digital Media.”
About a of the complications that the Commission renowned within the absence of a regulatory authority is that the opponents for the allocation of the fifth frequency for nationwide broadcasting, launched in 2022, has no longer but concluded.
Some TV channels compile started broadcasting on Telekom Srbija cable with out the require licence, and compile also got public funding, and public officials compile looked on them.