European Parliament adopts report on Serbia

The report confirms Serbia’s strategic commitment to European integration but lists serious shortcomings in key areas such as rule of law, the judiciary and alignment with European Union foreign policy. The report expressed concern over the systemic problems highlighted by the student protests.

The report said that the European Parliament expresses its sincere condolences to the families of the victims of the Novi Sad Railway Station tragedy and called for full and transparent legal proceedings following the investigation.

The report underlined the importance of freedom of speech and assembly and condemned in the strongest terms the violent attacks against peaceful protesters. It also expressed concern over the arrests of protesters and urged EU member state embassies to continue monitoring the ensuing legal cases.

It strongly condemned the Serbian authorities’ unsubstantiated allegations that EU Member States were involved in organising the student protests with a view to triggering a ‘colour revolution’ as well as the unlawful arrests and expulsions of EU citizens and the public disclosure, by convicted war criminals, of the personal data of EU citizens.

The reported urged the Serbian government to increase the transparency of media ownership and financing and called the authorities to investigate and prosecute all instances of hate speech, smear campaigns and strategic lawsuits against journalists. It called on Serbia to fight disinformation, including manipulative anti-EU narratives and, in particular, state-sponsored disinformation campaigns; condemns the opening of an RT (formerly Russia Today) office in Belgrade and the launch of RT’s online news service in Serbian.

It stressed “the critical importance of ensuring the independence of key institutions, including media regulators such as the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media.

The report urged Serbia to step up its reconciliation efforts and seek solutions to past disputes, in particular when it comes to missing persons and reiterated its full support for the EU-facilitated Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. It called Kosovo and Serbia to avoid anything that could raise tensions adding that they are expected to cooperate in bringing to justice the perpetrators of the Banjska armed incident, including Serb List official Milan Radoicic.