Press freedom in Serbia has deteriorated sharply, with violations doubling in 2025 and attacks on journalists escalating since the fatal Novi Sad railway station collapse, according to a new international mission report. The European Federation of Journalists, alongside the Media Freedom Rapid Response network and the Council of Europe’s Platform for the Safety of Journalists, documented 209 media freedom violations in 2025, up from 84 the previous year, affecting 359 media workers and entities. In the first six and a half months of 2026 alone, another 100 cases impacting 170 workers have been registered. The findings, presented following a March 2026 mission to Belgrade, paint a picture of a media landscape where physical violence, legal harassment, and digital surveillance are increasingly deployed against the press.
The surge in attacks intensified after the November 2024 roof collapse at Novi Sad’s railway station, which killed fifteen people and triggered the largest protests in Serbian history. Journalists covering the demonstrations became targets, and law enforcement not only failed to protect them but actively participated in the violence, with at least thirty eight documented police attacks on reporters since 2025. Beyond physical safety, strategic lawsuits against public participation, known as SLAPPs, have proliferated, with Serbia ranking third in Europe for such cases according to 2025 data from the CASE coalition. The continued criminalization of insult further chills investigative reporting. Media pluralism is also under siege, state owned Telecom Serbia has expanded its media holdings, consolidating pro government narratives across the broadcast and digital landscape, while the country’s electronic media regulator, REM, has been non functional for more than eighteen months. This makes Serbia the only EU candidate state without a working media regulatory body, leaving the sector without oversight as coordinated bot campaigns and spyware, including Pegasus from the NSO Group, are wielded as tools of digital censorship.
The government has floated legislative initiatives incorporating the European Media Freedom Act, but journalists and civil society have largely withdrawn from consultation processes, citing opaque drafting, rushed timelines, and a profound lack of trust in official intentions. The international mission has called on Serbian authorities to halt provocative rhetoric against the press, end the use of SLAPPs, and introduce specialized police and judicial training to protect journalists. It also urged the European Union to publicly condemn the attacks and tie direct funding to measurable improvements in journalist safety and media freedom standards. With the window for independent journalism in Serbia narrowing rapidly, the report warns that without concrete intervention, the country’s democratic backsliding will only deepen.
