SDS leader: Vucic abusing state of emergency for political purposes

"I'm afraid that during the state of emergency, the authoritarian course of Vucic's government is strengthened step by step," Tadic said.

According to the SDS, Tadic told the German ‘Der Tagesspiegel’ that there is a possibility Serbia might abandon its EU-oriented atmosphere and that it could get used to a completely different one during the state of emergency.

He warned that the situation is turning into one suitable for authoritarian regimes which abuse the crisis in order to ban public debate.

“In Serbia, a journalist was arrested only because she reported on the bad conditions in a hospital in Novi Sad. The intention of the government is clear - who reports on problems will be sanctioned,” the SDS leader said.

Tadic argued that there are only a handful of independent media outlets in Serbia but none with a national frequency, but he also indirectly blamed some heads of European countries for such a state of democracy.

“A lot of them support Vucic because of his promise that he will be servile with regard to solving the problem of Kosovo, as he is doing what the former democratically-elected government did not want to do regarding Kosovo out of conviction,” Tadic said.

"At the same time, Vucic used this position to abolish media freedom and democratic standards. We do not live in the same democracy we lived in before 2012,” he concluded.