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On 10 July 2026, the National Assembly adopted an authentic interpretation of Article 18(4) of the Law on Electronic Media. Two days later, the four independent REM Council members who resigned in December 2025 - Dubravka Valić Nedeljković, Ira Prodanov Krajišnik, Mileva Malešić and Rodoljub Šabić - published a letter announcing that they would take up their seats on the Council.
In the letter, the four place sole responsibility for REM's long non-functioning on the authorities, who - they write - intensified efforts to resolve it only in recent weeks, evidently under EU pressure. They recall that the immediate cause of their December resignations was the "persistent, unlawful, even criminal" favouring of one candidate for the ninth seat, and welcome that this has now been dropped.
They had earlier refused to return on the basis of a mere Committee conclusion, which they considered contrary to the law. The authentic interpretation now adopted holds that a mandate can end by resignation only if it had first begun - and since they never took office, exercised its powers or drew a salary, their mandate never started and so could not have ended. Whatever one makes of that reasoning, they note, an authentic interpretation binds everyone and applies retroactively, creating a new legal situation.
Refusing to serve in that situation, they argue, would let the authorities portray their conduct as unlawful and shift the blame for years of blockade - and its cost to the rule of law and Serbia's EU path - onto them and the civil-society actors who fought for a lawful REM. Responsibility, they insist, must stay with those who caused the deadlock.
The full timeline of the REM Council selection - and what has been contested at each step - is set out in CRTA's interactive tracker.
In the letter, the four place sole responsibility for REM's long non-functioning on the authorities, who - they write - intensified efforts to resolve it only in recent weeks, evidently under EU pressure. They recall that the immediate cause of their December resignations was the "persistent, unlawful, even criminal" favouring of one candidate for the ninth seat, and welcome that this has now been dropped.
They had earlier refused to return on the basis of a mere Committee conclusion, which they considered contrary to the law. The authentic interpretation now adopted holds that a mandate can end by resignation only if it had first begun - and since they never took office, exercised its powers or drew a salary, their mandate never started and so could not have ended. Whatever one makes of that reasoning, they note, an authentic interpretation binds everyone and applies retroactively, creating a new legal situation.
Refusing to serve in that situation, they argue, would let the authorities portray their conduct as unlawful and shift the blame for years of blockade - and its cost to the rule of law and Serbia's EU path - onto them and the civil-society actors who fought for a lawful REM. Responsibility, they insist, must stay with those who caused the deadlock.
The full timeline of the REM Council selection - and what has been contested at each step - is set out in CRTA's interactive tracker.
