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Last updated 13 July 2026 - developing situation
Electing a new REM Council: what went wrong
For 20 months Serbia has had no media regulator with real powers - leaving the media space without effective oversight. The Council is REM's decision-making body and holds its key powers - issuing and revoking broadcasting licences, sanctioning violations, and overseeing media coverage of elections. It has not functioned since November 2024, and this is not a technical delay: the selection process has been kept unlawful, with the ruling majority working to manipulate it and retain control over the media. And this is not only about the empty seats: even when it had a Council, REM consistently failed to use its powers as it should, as the record further down documents. The point is not simply to fill the Council's seats - it is to halt the backsliding in freedom of expression and secure genuine media pluralism. This tracker sets out what has gone wrong at each step, and why it matters.
20
months without a Council able to take binding decisions (since Nov 2024)
8/9
seats now filled - four through a disputed reinstatement
5
votes needed for most decisions; 6 (⅔) for the president, RTS board and Statute
3
selection attempts - none has produced a full, legitimate Council
Current status
On 10 July 2026, parliament adopted an "authentic interpretation" of the law holding that the four independent members' mandates had never formally begun - so, on this reading, they could not have resigned. The next day the four announced they were taking up their seats. The Council is nominally back to eight members, but through a manoeuvre CRTA regards as an abuse of the law.
- Reinstated through a disputed interpretation. The adopted opinion holds that a member's mandate begins only once they actually take part in Council sessions - a reading shaped to fit this situation rather than the law, which states a mandate ends the day a resignation is delivered to parliament. CRTA considers it an abuse of the instrument of authentic interpretation.
- The ninth seat stays empty. The seat reserved for the national minority councils remains vacant - one of the four members' conditions was that the election for the minority-nominated member be re-run. Per the Committee's conclusion, no election will be held now: it waits for the minority-council elections, which are expected to be called by the end of August and held in the autumn, with the ninth-seat procedure to follow.
- A working Council is still not guaranteed. Drafting a new REM Statute is to begin - the members' other condition. Electing the Council president, choosing the RTS Governing Board and adopting the Statute each need a two-thirds majority (six of nine votes); other decisions need five. Without agreement from at least one - or, for two-thirds decisions, two - of the four government-aligned members, the Council faces fresh deadlock.
- Over 20 months of paralysis and manipulation. For more than 20 months there has been no REM Council able to take binding decisions or issue sanctions - the regulator has run only on non-binding acts of its Secretariat. The entire selection process has been marked by significant manipulation, badly eroding public trust.
Timeline of key events - November 2024 to today
The bigger picture
For years, observers asked for a stronger REM. Instead it stopped working.
In every election cycle since 2020, OSCE/ODIHR observation missions have recommended - as a priority - that REM's independence be strengthened and that it use its powers proactively. The recommendations went largely unimplemented. Re-electing the Council is now written into Serbia's EU accession commitments, with a December 2024 deadline - yet since November 2024 the regulator has had no functioning Council at all.
Even while it was functioning, REM fell short
OSCE/ODIHR priority recommendations, 2020-2024
What the reports say
Read the full story
Timeline, updates and CRTA's analysis of REM and media regulation in Serbia.
CRTA documents the selection of the REM Council and the departures from the Law on Electronic Media that have kept the regulator without a legitimate, functional body.
