Pressure on universities

Citizen Lab and the SHARE Foundation confirmed that the phone of University of Belgrade rector Vladan Đokić was infected with Pegasus spyware during 2026 through a zero-click exploit. Rade Bajić, a senior prosecutorial associate at the Public Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime who had worked on the Generalštab case, received an Apple warning in August that his device had likely been targeted; an infection has not been confirmed. According to Citizen Lab, at least 16 members of Serbian civil society are now known to have been targeted with mercenary spyware. No state body has responded.

On 30 July 2026, the Government of Serbia repealed the amendments to the decrees under which, in March 2025, during the student blockades, the teaching workload of university teachers had been increased from 20 to 35 hours a week and time for research reduced to five hours. The academic community argued that the decree, adopted by the caretaker government, had in effect cut the pay of teachers who supported the blockades. The Government described the amendments as a temporary measure for making up classes.

On 20 July 2026, the Ministry of Education announced an extraordinary inspection into the procedure for amending the University of Belgrade Statute, following media reports of alleged irregularities in a Council vote on changing how a candidate for rector is elected. The move raises the question of where lawful inspection oversight ends and constitutionally guaranteed university autonomy begins: while the inspection may oversee the work of the University's bodies, the adoption and amendment of the statute fall within the university's protected right to self-organisation.