LOCAL PRESS
156 MPs are going to vote for Brnabic (Blic)
The appointment of Ana Brnabic to the post of the prime minister will be backed by 156 MPs from the ticket of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMSZ) and the Party for Democratic Action (PDD) of the ethnic Albanians from the south of Serbia, daily Blic wrote on Thursday. The SNS has 128 MPs, the SPS has 22, the VMSZ –PDD has 5 MPs. They all took the stance that they would vote for the appointment of Brnabic.
The Serbian parliament has 250 seats, so 126 votes are necessary a decision to be made by that body. According to Blic, several ministers and MPs from the SNS ticket opposed the prime minister to be someone who is not a member of that party, and in addition, is a gay person.
“As several SNS officials claimed, there was a lot of vanity of the Progressives, as individuals at a meeting with the SNS leader and the Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic on Monday considered that they should head the government. If only one of the 128 MPs decides to vote against, Serbia will, according to announcements by the SNS, go to new elections,” the daily wrote.
The SPS coalition partner, the United Serbia (JS), which has six MPs, is against the appointment of Brnabic. The JS leader Dragan Markovic a.k.a. Palma said that he would not vote for Brnabic because of her sexual orientation. On Tuesday evening, Vucic publicly urged Markovic to support appointment of Brnabic, because it was in the interests of the state. According to Blic, Vucic did not meet with Markovic on Wednesday, although he had announced he would try to persuade him to vote for Brnabic in the parliament.
Mogherini: West Balkan accession will be central subject in EU Foreign Relations (Beta)
European Union High Representative for Foreign Policy Federica Mogherini said on June 21 that the West Balkans would be the central topic of her activities in the coming period, right after defense and security. Mogherini said the future of the European Union, after the announced exit of the United Kingdom, was not to remain with 27 members, but that there were certain to be admissions of new states. In the West Balkans we dispose of huge possibilities of influence that we don’t use fully, Mogherini said in her closing argument at the annual conference of the EU Institute for Security Studies. The institute advises the EU high representative for foreign affairs.
As Beta learned from participants in the conference, Mogherini said there was confidence among the population of the West Balkans in the EU and commitment from authorities to work on getting in. She said the EU was expected to show whether it was dedicated and serious in its promises to admit West Balkan countries into the Union.
The high representative said all six West Balkan countries should go so far that their association with the EU becomes irreversible. If we don’t work on that, others will, Mogherini warned.
Vucic’s inauguration: From CSTO to NATO, Rogozin to Yee (B92)
Aleksandar Vucic‘s Presidential inauguration will be “unlike all previous ones” – and will, as he announced, bring together guests from around the world. The ceremony will be held on Friday at the Palace of Serbia in New Belgrade. Among the 5,000 expected guests will be regional leaders and envoys of world powers that stand on opposite sides. Thus both the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and NATO will be represented – by Secretary General Yuri Khatchaturov and Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller, respectively.
Russia will send Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin – who is otherwise a frequent guest of Serbia – while the US will send State Department Official Hoyt Brian Yee, who was also recently in Belgrade.
Among the invitees who have confirmed their attendance are a number of special guests, including former top European officials Alfred Gusenbauer and Franco Frattini, who were Vucic’s advisors while he served as Prime Minister, as well as close associates of President Vladimir Putin – high ranking official of the One Russia party Sergei Zheleznyak and Balkan Center for International Cooperation Director Viktor Kolbanovski.
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder – who recently spoke during a campaign rally in Belgrade organized by Vucic’s ruling SNS party – will also be here on Friday, this time as Germany’s special envoy. All three members of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Presidency – Mladen Ivanic, Dragan Covic, and Bakir Izetbegovic – as well as presidents of Croatia, Montenegro, and Slovenia – Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Filip Vujanovic, and Borut Pahor – have confirmed their arrival. UAE’s Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, Austrian Chancellor Chirstian Kern, and Hungarian PM Viktor Orban are also expected to attend.
Armenia, Georgia, Macedonia, Norway, Greece, Italy, Belarus, and Congo will all send cabinet ministers, while Azerbaijan, Slovakia, Turkey, China, Morroco, and the Czech Republic will be represented by parliament speakers or other high ranking parliament officials.
The EU will be represented by Commissioner Johannes Hahn, while one of the guests will be European External Action Service’s Director for Western Balkans and Turkey Angelina Eichhorst.
International organizations, such as the EBRD, the OSCE, the EIB, the UN, the IMF, the WHO, the CoE, and others, will mostly be represented by envoys who head their offices in Belgrade. About 40 ambassadors and consuls have also confirmed their presence.
More than 300 reporters will cover the event. According to announcements, the Palace of Serbia will have six salons designed to showcase the history of the Serbian state, and dedicated to various parts of the country – Vojvodina, central, eastern, and southern Serbia, Kosovo and Metohija.
Journalists have been told that the menu will include specialty dishes from all parts of Serbia, and wines from 57 domestic wineries. This will be financed from “donation contracts.”
Dacic travels to Minsk for CEI meeting (B92)
Acting PM and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic will attend the annual meeting of foreign ministers of the Central European Initiative (CEI) in Minsk on Thursday. The Serbian government announced this on Wednesday, noting that the CEI was established in 1989 through cooperation of four countries – Italy, Austria, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ), and Hungary.
Today it has 18 members: Austria, Albania, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Italy, Hungary, the Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Ukraine, and Montenegro. Ten countries are EU members, and the remaining eight are countries of the Balkans and the so-called European neighborhood.
This year’s chair of this initiative is Belarus and the priorities of its presidency are stronger infrastructure connectivity of the CEI region with the support of international financial institutions, support for entrepreneurship, promotion of modern digital solutions, as well as improving CEI’s relations with the European Union, the government said, citing a statement from the Serbian MFA.
Other priorities are support to the so-called Berlin Process and the Eastern Partnership, as well as continued cooperation with the United Nations and the OSCE. The CEI should also work on its reform and on the adoption of the Action Plan for the period from 2018 to 2020. Serbia chaired the Central European Initiative in 2011.
Moscow responds to fears about “espionage center in Serbia” (Tanjug)
Maria Zakharova has called “absurd” the statements made by US officials regarding the Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center in Nis, southern Serbia. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, US diplomats have made “absolutely unthinkable, absurd, far-fetched accusations in the worst tradition of the Cold War”.
“Allegedly, the center is practically a Russian spy nest in the Balkans, supposedly capable of endangering the American contingent in Kosovo,” she said. US diplomats should ask the opinion of the Balkan states and public organizations there about their appraisal of the RSHC before making such absurd statements, Zakharova said at a briefing. She recalled that the center, established in 2012, was from the start conceived and implemented as a joint humanitarian mission with Serbia, aimed at working in the Balkans in cooperation with all interested countries. Zakharova also recalled the center is registered as an international organization, that it has participated in overcoming the consequences caused by natural disasters in Serbia, Greece, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and has been visited by representatives of international organizations, including the UN and the OSCE.
US State Department official Hoyt Brian Yee, and US Ambassador to Serbia Kyle Scott recently voiced their concern over the center.
“The American ambassador in Belgrade has been invited to visit the center in Nis a number of times, but neither he nor the embassy’s staffers ever wished to take advantage of this opportunity. That’s a nice tactic that’s already being used in many places – not to see with one’s own eye, because if one does, one can no longer fantasize,” Zakharova concluded.
Space Narrowing for Public Speech (FoNet)
The Serbian authorities are consciously taking steps to narrow down and control public space, including discussions on many key issues which are not being opened like what happened in the 1990s, MP and University School of Philosophy Professor Zarko Korac said, FoNet news agency reported. Speaking at a debate on the Crisis of the Public Mind, he cited the case of Savamala which would be a topic for every democratic society but was bypassed in Serbia which is the consequence of the fact that since 2003 “public space has been narrowed down” in Serbia.
Speaking about the role of significant intellectuals in public life, Korac said that in the 1990s, after a multi-party system was introduced in Serbia, the number of intellectuals in every party, except the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), was great and today there are relatively few of them and they play a marginal role. Korac said that this situation led to the fact that the former Serbian President (Tomislav Nikolic) “was a man with a fake, bought diploma and which was, unfortunately, declared valid”.
Historian Milan Protic said that he is not quite clear about the term intellectual in Serbia but that he is “completely clear about the term semi-intellectual”. In this country we have a problem with free thinking at least since World War 2 and most probably earlier, the former Ambassador in Washington said. He added that the problem was always the fact that most intellectuals want to impose what he called their own reflex on others and “ban everyone who thinks differently from writing and speaking about what they believe in” and so they become censors for good.
Sociologist Srecko Mihailovic said that the topic of the role of intellectuals in society interests no one in Serbia and that “the circle of people interested is limited to only those who agreed to take part in this gathering”. That did not start yesterday… We have a topic which does not interest the public, politicians and very little or not at all the intellectuals themselves or the people who believe they are intellectuals. They don’t like the examining of their position because that would not benefit them, Mihailovic said. Speaking about the voices of the authorities among intellectuals, Mihailovic said that they can be recognized as people who self-identify or who others identify as analysts. He said that intellectuals who are keeping quiet are not right when they say that they don’t speak out because the media won’t publish what they say, adding that there are media who will publish what they say and that there are countless opportunities on the Internet. That is an excuse in the heads of people who think like that… You cannot abolish the public intellectuals of responsibility for the state of the public word and dialogue nor for the political situation in the country, Mihailovic said.
REGIONAL PRESS
Bosnia and Herzegovina
B&H CoM’s Zvizdic meets Commissioner Hahn in Brussels (TV1)
Chairman of Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) Council of Ministers (CoM) Denis Zvizdic met with EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn in Brussels on Wednesday. Addressing the joint press conference after the meeting, Zvizdic said that B&H will meet its obligation regarding the European Commission’s (EC) Questionnaire in the next couple of months, i.e. it will prepare answers professionally and submit them with the EC.
“We will thus meet one of the most important previous conditions and create the necessary precondition for the next most important step in this phase – acquiring the EU candidate status for B&H. This is actually one of our most important goals in the next five or six months”, Zvizdic stated. He added that he informed Hahn that B&H has completed all its obligations in terms of preparations for the upcoming summit of the Western Balkan leaders to take place in Trieste, Italy in July. Hahn once again called on B&H authorities to comply with signed obligations and refrain from doing things that do not go in favor of the citizens who elected them. Hahn called on the B&H authorities to focus on the European path. Hahn commended B&H for its engagement in the process known as the ‘Western Balkans 6’.
Brammertz: Main challenge was not severity of my job, but denial of war crimes that still exists (N1)
Chief Prosecutor of ICTY Serge Brammertz arrived in Sarajevo on Wednesday to attend a conference on legacy of the ICTY that will start on Thursday. The ICTY will be closed down by the end of the year, being replaced by the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals. Brammertz told N1 that his main challenge was not severity of his job, but denial of war crimes that still exists in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H). He stressed that irresponsible politicians are keeping people in captivity, by using slogans from the past. Brammertz said that naming a building after former Republika Srpska (RS) President Radovan Karadzic or banning lectures on siege of Sarajevo in textbooks in the RS are scandals.
Speaking about report against Serbia with the UN Security Council for lack of cooperation, he explained that the ICTY Prosecutor’s Office complained because Serbia “returned to practice of no cooperation with the Tribunal, which, unfortunately, casts more doubt on Serbia’s commitment to justice for war crimes that were committed in former Yugoslavia and to the rule of law”.
Speaking about B&H’s lawsuit against Serbia, Brammertz emphasized that people often miss the importance of the fact that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Serbia failed to prevent genocide and that Serbia now has obligation to punish genocide committed in Srebrenica.
“It seems like Serbia is not solving any of these problems. Not only genocide is still being denied, and it is official policy, but there is only the first trial taking place in Serbia now for the crimes in Srebrenica, more than 22 years after the crimes were committed. It is yet to be seen if that trial is heading to right direction”, he underlined.
Commenting the case ‘Stanisic and Simatovic’, the ICTY Prosecutor said that the trial has just started and that “we” will present the best evidence to prove that they played key roles in the Joint Criminal Enterprise of establishing territories in Croatia and B&H dominated by Serbs. As for the case of Slobodan Milosevic, who died during the trial, Brammertz noted that although he died before final verdict the facts and the evidence still remain.
Speaking about the arrest of war crime suspects in Orasje and Croatia’s reaction to that, he replied that he was very surprised by the reactions that were not in line with the rule of law and that looked like political meddling in a court procedure. He also said he encouraged Croatia’s authorities on many occasions to stop with the policy of rejecting the legal cooperation in cases that involve Croatian citizens accused of crimes. He hopes that Croatia will understand it will get a lot more if it commits again to efficient legal cooperation with B&H, by accepting the forwarding of cases against Croatian citizens who live in B&H from the Prosecutor’s Office of B&H and enabling Croatia’s judiciary to adequately process those cases.
Trial in case against Radoncic and others resumed before Court of B&H (FTV)
The trial of SBB Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) leader Fahrudin Radoncic and others continued before the Court of B&H in Sarajevo on Wednesday. The hearing was mostly dedicated to whether the analysis of mobile phone owned by key prosecution witness Azra Saric and the testimony by SIPA’s forensic expert Irhad Kos should be accepted and included into the evidence materials, given the fact that there was no court order for such analysis. Namely, Saric had handed over her mobile phone to the Prosecutor’s Office of B&H and requested it to analyze only her communication with Bakir Dautbasic and Bilsena Sahman. The defendants’ lawyers also wanted an analysis of Saric’s communication with prosecutors of the Prosecutor’s Office of B&H Dubravko Campara and Oleg Cavka, with an aim to discredit her. The Trial Chamber concluded that the aforementioned evidence materials had been obtained illegally, so they will no longer be used in the trial of Radoncic and others. Radoncic’s defense assessed that such decision will change the course of the court procedure in favor of the defendant. The trial is due to continue on July 5.
US President Donal Trump has made his first decision concerning the Western Balkans (Dnevni avaz)
Namely, Trump signed the continuation for another year of “the National Emergency with Respect to the Western Balkans” – first introduced 16 years ago by George Bush.
“On June 26, 2001, by Executive Order 13219, the president declared a national emergency with respect to the Western Balkans, pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States constituted by the actions of persons engaged in, or assisting, sponsoring, or supporting extremist violence in the Republic of Macedonia and elsewhere in the Western Balkans region, or acts obstructing implementation of the Dayton Accords in Bosnia or United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 of June 10, 1999, in Kosovo,” the White House announced on its website.
The media in Sarajevo reported about this noting that SNSD leader and Serb Republic (RS) President Milorad Dodik was added to the list early this year.
“The actions of persons threatening the peace and international stabilization efforts in the Western Balkans, including acts of extremist violence and obstructionist activity, continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” the White House said, citing Trump’s decision, and added:
“For this reason, the national emergency declared on June 26, 2001, and the measures adopted on that date and thereafter to deal with that emergency, must continue in effect beyond June 26, 2017. Therefore, in accordance with section 202 of the National Emergencies Act, I am continuing for one year the national emergency with respect to the Western Balkans declared in Executive Order 13219.”
Based on the 2001 decision, a black list was formed of persons and organizations that the US government and companies are prohibited from cooperating with, and whose assets and money transactions are blocked in that country, Sarajevo-based Dnevni Avaz reported.
The daily added on its website the list, as previously published, contains, “among others,” the names of Radovan Karadzic, Biljana Plavsic, Sonja Karadzic-Jovicevic, Momcilo Krajisnik, Ljiljana Zelen-Karadzic, Aleksandar Karadzic, Milovan Bjelica, Ljubomir Borovcanin, Stojan Zupljanin, Dusko Sikirica, Milan Simic, Senad Sahinpasic, Hasan Cengic, Bakir Alispahic, Ljubo Cesic, Valentin Coric, Savo Krunic, Zoran Petric, Naser Kelmendi.
Croatia
“Croatia Has the Most Complex Relations with Serbia” (Jutarnji list, N1)
Newly-appointed Foreign Minister Marija Pejcinovic Buric on Croatia’s foreign policy.
The Serbian law on regional jurisdiction for war crimes is detrimental to regional co-operation and should be put out of force, said Croatia’s new Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Marija Pejcinovic Buric on Wednesday, on the eve of the official handover of duties at the Foreign Ministry, reports N1.
Pejcinovic Buric said that she would describe Serbia as the neighboring country with which Croatia has the largest number of open issues and the most complex relations. In her words, it is good that there are open chapters in Serbia’s accession negotiations with the EU, because certain processes within the framework of these chapters will also affect Croatia’s relations with Serbia.
“We have indications that discussions could be launched. There is the question of the regional jurisdiction for war crimes which Serbia has taken over, and we think that this law is a hybrid between various possible legislation that exists in that sense. It is quite questionable and detrimental regarding regional cooperation, and we think we should discuss putting it out of force or changing its provisions,” she said. “The issue of missing and detained person is one of the first to be put on the agenda. Other problems are related to the border question, and we will soon form a border commission in the government,” the Minister announced.
As far as Slovenia is concerned, Croatia wants good relations with this neighboring country, but the border issue has to be resolved. Given the announcement by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague that on 29 June it would issue a decision on the maritime border between Slovenia and Croatia, the Minister pointed out that Croatia had left the arbitration proceedings in 2015 since Slovenia had compromised the agreement. “It does not exist for us, and everyone has been informed about it. According to the Vienna Convention, we have made every effort to leave this agreement, and it cannot be enforced,” the Minister said, commenting on statements made by some Slovenian officials that Croatia should be forced to respect the arbitration decision.
Pejcinovic Buric said that she would continue with the current foreign policy and that all important issues remained the same. These include relations with the neighborhood, primarily with Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H), the affirmation of Croatia’s Central European identity, the policies towards Croats outside the homeland, and the activities within NATO and the EU.
As for the status of Croats in B&H, they are currently perhaps in the most difficult position since the war, she said. “When the Dayton Agreement was signed, it was thought that the war would be stopped and that the country would become a stable modern state. But, the process changed and did not turn out as imagined,” the Minister said. The number of Croats is lower than before the war, and they are in fact unable to fully enjoy their democratic rights, she said, stressing that it was important to preserve Croatian identity through fostering the Croatian language.
Pejcinovic Buric will participate as a guest in a 10 July meeting of the Visegrad Plus group in Budapest. “I think it is essential to work together with the countries of the Central European dimension, which is based on the strengthening of connections, energy and infrastructure,” she said.
New Ambassadors named and ready to assume their responsibilities (24 sata)
As 24sata reports on the 20th of June, 2017, the current Croatian ambassadors who have completed their mandates are set to be replaced by twenty new colleagues. The former Croatian ambassador to Hungary, Gordan Grlic Radman, is set to head to Germany, while Aleksandar Sunko will represent the country in Greece. Igor Pokaz is off to Great Britain and Jasen Mesic will represent Croatia in Rome, Italy.
The recipient country’s approval – an indispensable step in the procedure – came directly from the British capital for Igor Pokaz, Croatia’s new ambassador to the United Kingdom, where Ivan Grdesic will step down after almost five years on the job. Igor Pokaz returned to diplomacy after privately withdrawing from the post of ambassador of the Republic of Croatia to Russia back in 2015, after which this place (until the appointment of Toncic Stanicic earlier this year) remained vacant.
Pjer Simunovic will replace Josko Paro in Washington, United States. The former Ambassador to France, Ivo Goldstein, has already been dismissed, despite numerous criticisms, Goldstein waited for the end of his mandate before stepping down officially. In Belgrade, Gordan Markotic has already been dismissed, the same story goes for the Croatian ambassador to Finland, Slovakia and Morocco. New candidates for those newly opened positions have not yet gone through all the necessary steps for their appointment.
fYROM
Veljanovski: We demand an insight into what has Zaev agreed upon for the Good Neighborly Relations (Meta)
VMRO-DPMNE is extremely concerned about the lack of transparency and the ease with which Zaev approached an extremely serious issue, such as the conclusion of the agreement with Bulgaria”, reads the party’s statement. VMRO-DPMNE demands to see a report regarding what Zaev arranged during his visit to Sofia and they say that the ruling party should clear up the dilemmas that are troubling the Macedonian people after Zoran Zaev’s two-day visit to Bulgaria.
“Does SDS and Zoran Zaev believe that the Republic of Macedonia has no history of its own? Is Macedonian history meaningless to Zoran Zaev, so he decided to announce that there will be changes made to Macedonian textbooks, anything that is not in the spirit of cooperation between the two countries?
VMRO-DPMNE leader Gruevski meets high EU officials in Brussels (MIA)
Nikola Gruevski, leader of Macedonia’s opposition VMRO-DPMNE, held talks Wednesday in Brussels with the EP Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) chairman, David McAllister and European Council President Donald Tusk. Speaking to reporters afterwards, Gruevski said the meetings and his visit to Brussels were aimed at finding mechanisms to help Macedonia to speed up its pace towards joining the Euro-Atlantic organizations. Macedonia should start the EU accession talks that would result in the country’s membership status, Gruevski told McAllister and Tusk. Today, June 22, Gruevski is scheduled to meet EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and take part in the EPP Summit.
Albania
Red and Black Alliance Disappointed by DP, Supports SMI (ADN)
The Red and Black Alliance (RBA) changed its political course on Wednesday supporting the Socialist Movement for Integration (SMI). A message addressed to this political force’ supporters by the party’s headship urged them to support and vote for SMI on June 25. “Let’s support and vote for SMI, the number 1 in the ballot paper” wrote RBA headship in the message extended to the supporters throughout the country. This decision is directly related to the disappointment experienced by the Democratic Party (DP) and the fact that RBA leader, Kreshnik Spahiu was not included in the candidates for MPs lists. This unexpected decision of the Democrat leader, Lulzim Basha, despite Spahiu’s continuous presence in the so-called ‘Freedom’s Tent’, urged the last to definitively abandon the politics.
General elections-Here is how 140 Parliamentary mandates will be divided (ATA)
The general elections of June 25 are for 140 seats in the Parliament. The lawmakers will be elected through the regional proportional system. According to the decision of the Assembly of Albania, the number of lawmaker mandates for every electoral zone in the 12 regions of the country is as follows: Berati region 7 mandates, Dibra region 6 mandates, Durrësi region 14 mandates, Elbasani region 14 mandates, Fieri region 16 mandates, Gjirokastra region 5 mandates, Korça region 11 mandates, Kukësi region 3 mandates, Lezha region 7 mandates, Shkodra region 11 mandates, Tirana region 34 mandates and Vlora region 12 mandates.
INTERNATIONAL PRESS
Media Ownership Monitor presented by RSF and BIRN (BIRN)
Political influence and concentration distorts the Serbian media market. The resulting lack of plurality can be detected in Television and Radio, but also with the printed press. This is one of the results of the three-months-long investigative research that Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and Reporters Without Borders have jointly carried out. The results of the “Media Ownership Monitor Serbia” are presented in Belgrade. They shed light on the Serbian media market disclosing who owns and ultimately controls Serbian mass media.
HIGH MEDIA AUDIENCE CONCENTRATION
The Media Ownership Monitor has revealed that the media market in Serbia is highly concentrated. The top four owners in Serbia’s Television market, one of them being the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), reach an audience of almost two thirds of the viewers (62%). An equally high concentration can be observed in printed press, where the top four owners (Ringier Axel Springer Media AG, Adria Media Group, Insajder Tim and Kompanija Novosti) have a combined readership of 63 percent. In Radio, still more than half of the audience (51%) is attributed to the four market leaders – S Media Team, Maxim Media Group, Public Broadcasting Service and Antenna Group. This poses a high risk to media pluralism in the country.
The research also revealed a high level of cross-media concentration of the audio-visual, print and online sectors. With high audience shares across TV, Radio and online, the state-owned Public Service Broadcaster takes the lead. It is followed by Pink, Antenna Group, S Media Team and Maxim Media being the strongest private, commercial players in electronic media sector. However, in Serbia cross-media ownership remains separate between audio-visual and print sector. There is no single media company active in all four media sectors. Major owners of TV outlets tend to have radio outlets as well, whereas publishers of print media tend to have online editions of their outlets. In print and online, Ringier Axel Springer Media, Adria Media and Insajder Tim (publisher of Informer daily and online) dominate the audience shares.
STRONG INFLUENCE OF THE STATE
The Serbian media market is small and oversaturated with media working under harsh economic pressure. There are more than 1600 media outlets registered in the Serbian Business Registry Agency (SBRA), although due to a poorly regulated media system, the exact number of registered active media outlets remains unknown. The two public broadcasters – RTS with national coverage and RTV with regional – receive most of their revenues from the state budget. Besides that, they are competing with other media outlets for shares on a shrinking advertising market, which according to Nielsen was worth round 174 million Euro in 2016. This cannot sustain the economic survival of all currently active media outlets.
Due to the permanent lack of capital, the state still has a significant role and impact on the media market. It controls media through ownership, but dominantly through different models of state funding. Public funds are distributed arbitrarily and in a nontransparent manner, usually in favor of pro-government media outlets, without clear and measurable criteria, public controls and evaluations.
For years the state through its Ministries and public enterprises has also been the biggest advertiser in the country. Besides, it exerts pressure on the media market through selective enforcement of tax laws: While the bank accounts of a newspaper critical of the government may be blocked due to “unpaid income taxes”, another outlet may stay untouched although owing millions of euros in unpaid taxes. The total amount of state aid on the market and state advertising budgets is unknown to the public, but only 20 percent of state funding to media outlets is awarded through competitive processes.
The dependency on state funding makes most media rather propagandists of the ruling party than objective and impartial providers of information for citizens. This became visible during the presidential elections in April 2017, when Aleksandar Vucic – both Prime Minister and Presidential candidate at the time – had ten times more airtime on national broadcasters than all other candidates combined. Critical reporting on government politics is found mostly in online media and investigative centers such as the Center for Investigative Journalism Serbia (CINS), the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (KRIK), BIRN and the news sites of Istinomer, Insajder, Cenzolovka, Juzne vesti and Voice.
NO FULL OWNERSHIP TRANSPARENCY AFTER MEDIA PRIVATIZATION
In a process of media privatization, that began in 2015, the state was supposed to give in an ownership of 75 media outlets. Until today, less than half of them have been privatized, although the privatization process is formally finished. Only 34 former state-owned media were actually sold, while many others were closed leaving more than 1000 journalists without a job. Media privatization has given rise to local media ownership concentration with businessmen buying several media outlets at a time in some regions as was the case with businessman Radoica Milosavljevic and the Kopernikus Cable Network, both close to the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).
In the sample of 48 media, investigated by BIRN and Reporters Without Borders, seven had intransparent ownership structures. Particularly two leading papers – Vecernje Novosti and Politika – have unresolved, opaque ownership structures and are effectively state-run. For the majority of the media outlets and related companies, ownership data was at least publicly available at the Serbian Business Register’s Agency (SBRA) and other public registers. Much of the transparency scoring goes to public media PBS, legally obliged to publish details about its ownership proactively and comprehensively. Still, record keeping and data available in public domain could further improve, especially, through Media Register run by SBRA, where current available data are incomplete and outdated.
LOCAL MEDIA CONCENTRATION BELOW THE RADAR
The media is regulated by well-formulated laws specific to media sector with an exception of online media. Yet the enforcement of these regulations remains problematic. The threshold for media concentration is set rather high, alarming only at a level of 35 percent of audience shares. Numerous concentrations of local media, influencing media pluralism and fair market competition, thus remain under the radar and out of the public eye. Local and regional media hardly reach one percent of the audience share and several of them, when combined under one ownership structure, do not fall under concentration in legal terms, but are de facto changing the local informational landscape.
