Serbia wants to move forward with its EU accession, even as journalists are being threatened, surveilled and forced into exile. This exposes the growing gap between Belgrade’s European ambitions and its record on media freedom.
Serbia is the only country in the Europe-Balkans zone where journalists are being forced into exile because of threats linked to their work, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The European Commission’s 2026 Rule of Law Report reached a similar conclusion in July, finding that “the safety of journalists further deteriorated” in Serbia.
Yet at the same time, the Commission proposed opening a new cluster of chapters in Belgrade’s EU accession negotiations. Eight member states — Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Sweden — objected, pointing to Serbia’s deteriorating rule of law and its refusal to align with EU foreign policy.
“The European Commission and EU member states must stop negotiating with Serbia on its accession as if this wasn’t happening.”
— Reporters Without Borders
That leaves the EU facing a familiar dilemma: how far can it push Serbia on democratic standards while keeping its accession process alive?
Accountability without consequences
RSF says threats against Serbian journalists do not stop once they leave the country.
One recent example is journalist Marko Vidojković, a columnist for the Danas daily and host of the Dobar, loš, zao podcast on Serbian outlet Nova.rs. He left Serbia in 2023 after receiving death threats and becoming the target of a public smear campaign led by President Aleksandar Vučić. So far, the police investigation into the threats has produced no results.
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Vidojković is one of six Serbian journalists currently working from exile, according to RSF.
“We have denounced Serbia’s government efforts to capture public and private media, host and spread Russian propaganda, intoxicate other countries’ information spaces with its lies, and to block foreign journalists at the country’s borders,” RSF said. “But making six journalists go into exile is a new level of hostility unparalleled in the region.”
Dušan Gajić, Europe correspondent for Serbia’s public broadcaster RTS, told EU Perspectives that media freedom matters even to journalists working outside the country. Although he is not directly exposed to the realities of Serbia’s domestic media landscape, “questions of independence, editorial independence, and autonomy of journalists are relevant also for foreign correspondents because they work for media who are part of the wider picture”.
“Making six journalists go into exile is a new level of hostility unparalleled in the region.”
— Reporters Without Borders
“If the space for different views is shrinking internally in the country, that can inevitably affect also the work of correspondents”, he added.
For Gajić, the biggest problem is difficult to isolate, but “probably it is the lack of genuine media pluralism”.
RSF has also warned that media freedom should be treated as a key condition for Serbia’s EU integration. “The European Commission and EU member states must stop negotiating with Serbia on its accession as if this wasn’t happening,” the organisation said.
The pressure on journalists also extends beyond traditional media. Amnesty International has reported that digital surveillance in Serbia has taken place amid anti-government demonstrations and the harassment of civil society groups and journalists critical of the authorities.
Putin’s role — or just Vučić’s?
Foreign interference, pro-Russian propaganda and disinformation are a daily feature of Serbia’s media landscape. But Gajić cautions against treating Serbia as simply another version of Moldova or the post-Soviet states seeking closer ties with the EU.
“It is a serious problem in Serbia but is a somewhat different case from other countries of the post-Soviet or Eastern European space,” he said. “It’s not necessarily something imported and just copy-pasted from Russia. In Serbia, there is a disinformation ecosystem which was created locally.” Its “common denominator”, he said, is disinformation combined with a “tabloid sensationalist press”.
The war in Ukraine is one of the main subjects around which disinformation circulates. However, it is far from the only one. “This parallel reality is not only limited to interpretation of the Ukraine war and so on,” Gajić said. “Its main purpose is actually to create confusion locally in the domestic political scene.”
Is Serbia’s EU accession still going anywhere?
Serbia’s EU accession process has been effectively stalled for years. The country is now also waiting for parliamentary elections expected in October. The exact date is yet to be set.
Whether the elections can change Serbia’s relationship with the EU “depends on many things, such as the results, of course, but also how the election campaign goes”, Gajić said. One key test will be whether the elections are free, fair and competitive. Those standards, he said, “will definitely influence the relations with Europe”.
“In Serbia, there is a disinformation ecosystem which was created locally.”
— Dušan Gajić
But without a fundamental change in Belgrade’s approach to accession, “this blockage will stay”. “And this radical change is not on the horizon,” Gajić said. “When I say radical change, it means a totally different approach to media freedom, our topic, also rule of law in a wider sense, including the fight against corruption and judicial independence.”
Under the current circumstances, he sees Serbia’s EU accession prospects as increasingly bleak.
A locally rooted problem
According to the European Commission, Serbia is the most Eurosceptic country in the Western Balkans. The reasons are deeply rooted in the country’s politics and recent history, Gajić said.
“There are some coming from the history and the war from the ’90s. There are reasons related to Kosovo problem. An important part, the crucial perhaps one, is the anti-EU narratives of a good part of the media outlets close to the government.”
At the same time, he said, many Serbians who oppose the government see the EU as complicit with the authorities in undermining democracy.
There is a widespread perception that Europe is more interested in regional stability, including stability secured through Vučić’s approach to lithium resources and Kosovo, than in building genuine democracy in Serbia. “So it’s a kind of perfect storm for the reputation of Europe in Serbia,” Gajić said.
Despite these deeply rooted domestic problems, however, Serbia is unlikely to break completely with the EU. “The authorities would probably never risk breaking up totally with Europe and quitting the EU accession process, like it happened in Georgia,” Gajić said.
Serbia is simply too economically integrated with the EU, he argued, with its economy deeply tied to European supply chains and trade.
That may keep Belgrade on the European path. But whether it can move forward on that path while journalists are being threatened, surveilled and forced into exile is a much harder question.
