• The functioning of democratic institutions in Serbia continued to be challenged. Throughout the year, the National Assembly’s work continued to be marred by problems similar to those that led to the opposition’s parliamentary and electoral boycott from 2019 to 2022. The ruling majority stifled parliamentary debate by only scheduling sessions 24 hours in advance. The parliamentary speaker, an SNS legislator, misused his position and did not act as a neutral arbiter. The sessions of the National Assembly were often tarnished by physical altercations and insults.2
• The central events in Serbia in 2023 were undoubtedly the two mass shootings on 3 and 4 May. The first occurred at the Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school in downtown Belgrade, when a 13-old student who attended the school killed nine children and a security guard and wounded six more people. Only a day later, another mass shooting took place near the Belgrade suburb of Mladenovac, when a 21-old perpetrator killed nine and wounded 12, mostly young people.3 The shootings were followed by massive Serbia against Violence protests.4 The organizers of the rallies, mainly pro-EU opposition parties, demanded snap elections in September and later used Serbia against Violence as the name of the coalition they ran in.
• The Serbian parliament established an inquiry committee in July to examine the circumstances that led to the two mass shootings. The committee was chaired by an opposition legislator, Marinika Tepić. However, only after a few days, an anonymous statement on parliament’s website announced the suspension of the committee’s work, allegedly at the request of some of the victims’ parents.5
• Snap parliamentary and local elections in 65 cities and municipalities were held on December 17. Even though the opposition did demand the snap parliamentary elections, Vučić’s unilateral decision to hold snap elections in some of the country’s cities and municipalities,6 only several months before regular local elections, by having local mayors stage an unjustified mass resignation demonstrated the further deterioration of democratic institutions in Serbia, which are subordinated to the interests of the ruling political party.7
• Vučić’s SNS list won almost a half of the national vote, once again allowing the party to form a new government without a coalition. The pro-EU SPN opposition coalition also achieved good results, winning around a quarter of the vote in the best result for any opposition list since 2012. The SPS, the National Democratic Alternative (NADA) right-wing opposition coalition, and a newly emerged populist and pro-Russian movement, We–the Voice of the People (MI-GIN), also won seats in the National Assembly , as did several national minority lists.8
• Vast electoral irregularities were reported by domestic and international observers—especially in Belgrade, where there was evidence that people had been transported in from elsewhere to vote, directly influencing electoral outcomes—and raised concerns with several Western governments and officials (see Electoral Process).9 The opposition organized protests and several leading opposition figures launched a hunger strike only a day after the elections took place, demanding that elections be held again.10 The widespread nature of the alleged electoral fraud, hinting that officials at different levels of government had participated in the fraudulent registration of voters, represents a huge problem in terms of the quality of Serbia’s democratic processes, and the nation’s trust in their validity.11
• Serbian president Vučić and Kosovo prime minister Albin Kurti reached agreements on the normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo in Brussels in February and Ohrid in March.12 Vučić publicly refused to sign any agreements, but the EU nonetheless proclaimed that they were accepted.13 The agreements were based on the so-called French-German proposal from 2022, which had led to heated debates in the Serbian parliament and put the Kosovo issue at the center of Serbian politics again.14 This led to a huge smear campaign against the right-wing opposition in tabloids and through street graffiti.15 However, the agreements were not followed by significant progress towards normalization.
• As disputes with Kosovo took center stage, President Vučić announced the foundation of a new political movement, which could be understood as an attempt to rebrand the SNS in the face of nationalist opposition.16 Vučić eventually resigned from the position he had held of SNS president and announced the formation of the “Popular Movement for the State,” but the two mass shootings postponed its creation.17 The SNS eventually took part in the elections without the new movement being formed. Despite his formal resignation, Vučić continued to be a dominant political figure, with his informal influence over the ruling party and the government far surpassing his official responsibilities.
• There was instability in North Kosovo throughout 2023, with the most important incident happening on September 24 in the village of Banjska, where a clash between a heavily armed Serb group and the Kosovo police resulted in the deaths of one Kosovo police officer and three Serbs.18 Kosovo and the EU quickly labeled the incident as a terrorist attack while Serbia blamed Kosovo and its prime minister Kurti for the tensions, but the true aim of the armed group remains unknown.19 The international community put pressure on the Serbian government to explain its role the incident, with potential sanctions discussed by the EU.20 In Serbia, though, the Banjska incident was largely overshadowed by the campaign for the upcoming elections.

• Snap parliamentary and snap local elections in sixty-five cities and municipalities—about half of the country’s total—were held on 17 December.21 These were the second snap parliamentary elections in less than two years, and the fourth snap elections since the SNS took power in 2012, during which time only one election was held regularly.
• Parliamentary elections resulted in a clear victory for the SNS, which won 46.75 percent of the vote and 129 seats in parliament. Its coalition partner SPS, however, won only 6.55 percent and 18 seats, indicating that many voters had likely just switched their support from one ruling party to the other. On the opposition side, the SPN coalition—comprising several left, center-left, and centrist parties—achieved a strong result, winning 23.66 percent and 65 seats. Two smaller parties also passed the 3-percent threshold necessary to sit in parliament: the right-wing opposition coalition NADA, which won 5.02 percent and 13 seats, and the newly emerged populist and pro-Russian political movement MI-GIN, which won 4.69% and 13 seats.22
• The elections were marred by vast irregularities, especially in the city of Belgrade, according to both domestic23 and international observers.24 Among the most significant problems were cases of vote-buying, the use of parallel voter lists to track voters, intimidation of voters and observers, and the abuse of public resources, as well as an overall uneven playing field favoring the SNS-led government.
• The biggest controversy of the December elections were allegations of organized voter migration in Belgrade, where voters from other places were illegally registered to vote to influence local election results.25 On election day, it was discovered that voters from the Republic of Srpska entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) were brought and driven around the city to vote in Belgrade local elections.26 Even public officials and political figures from BiH voted in local and provincial elections in Serbia. The Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA), a Serbian electoral observer organization, published an analysis of voter migration, stating that they indeed took place and directly influenced Belgrade elections.27 Allegations later surfaced about voters who were listed as residing in public institutions, unfinished buildings, telephone exchanges, and sheds.28 The opposition claimed there were at least 100,000 “phantom voters” in Belgrade.29 This manipulation of voter registries directly influenced election results in Belgrade, but also brought the legitimacy of the entire electoral process into question.
• Significant controversies surrounding the elections emerged long before election day. There is evidence of forged signatures, including those of public personas, being used to ensure the nomination of seven out of 14 electoral lists taking part in Belgrade local election. Those nominations helped disperse the opposition’s votes and provided the problematic lists with representatives in electoral commissions and polling boards. Both the City Electoral Commission (GIK) and the courts rejected complaints filed by Serbia against Violence and allowed the lists to be nominated.30
• Reporters from the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS) documented an SNS vote-buying scheme run out of a SNS call center operating at an agency for hostesses.31 The prosecution remained silent on the scheme, and President Vučić publicly defended the scheme as legitimate.32
• Serbian media exhibited a strong bias in favor of the ruling parties, which had increased since the last election. Ruling parties received 93 percent of airtime among political actors by informational programs broadcast on national TV stations, while the opposition had only 7 percent.33 Despite not being a candidate in the elections, Vučić practically led the election campaign, appearing 46 times in the public in the 44 days of the campaign.34
• On the other hand, the opposition faced several smear campaigns. Both the opposition and critical independent media were accused of attacking and insulting Vučić’s family by insinuating that his father is not actually his father, despite Vučić himself starting this story and reviving an old conspiracy theory.35 Progovernment media published a private sex tape of an SPN’s candidate for Belgrade City Council, including with live national television coverage.36 The SPN candidate had previously accused Vučić and the Security Intelligence Agency (BIA) of using the video to pressure him, especially as the president had publicly said he “knew something” about the SPN candidate and threatened him unless he remained silent.37
• There was no significant progress in addressing recommendations made by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on electoral conditions since the last elections in 2022. According to the CRTA, none of the 15 general recommendations were fully implemented, while only one out of nine priority recommendations - involving standardized training for members of electoral boards - was partially implemented. Recommendations regarding pressure on voters, media imbalances, and abuses of office and public resources remained unaddressed going into the 2023 snap elections.38
• Despite a lack of substantial improvements stemming from two rounds of interparty dialogue between the government and opposition on electoral conditions in 2019 and 2021, a new round of the interparty dialogue in 2023 was not supposed to focus on elections, but rather the work of the parliament. However, the dialogue did not take place in 2023 due to political turbulence caused by the Serbia against Violence protests and the scheduling of snap elections.39
• There was speculation throughout 2023 that electoral laws might be changed to return the threshold for entering the national and local assemblies to 5 percent; the threshold had only been lowered to the current 3 percent in 2020.40 Such speculation continued to within a couple of weeks before elections were scheduled, causing confusion about how those elections would be conducted. However, elections were eventually scheduled without any changes to the threshold.

• According to the Serbian Business Registers Agency (SBRA), there were 37,434 registered civil society organizations in Serbia as of December 31, 2023, representing modest growth since the end of 2022.41
• Civil society organizations continued to be the targets of smear campaigns which attempted to discredit them. Progovernment tabloids and TV stations have, on several occasions, targeted civil society organizations critical of the government, including with accusations of embezzlement,42 working for foreign interests,43 and trying to violently overthrow Serbia’s constitutional order.44 The latter accusation was leveled against organizations that signed issued a press release calling for the EU and other international partners to support democratization and state de-capture as a precondition for continued engagement with Serbia’s government and the country’s accession to the EU.45 Civil society activists even found themselves under a spyware attack in August carried out by unknown perpetrators but with characteristics of previous attacks by state-sponsored actors, the first incident of such kind ever recorded in Serbia.46
• The government formed the Council for Creating a Stimulating Environment for the Development of the Civil Society in September, and the council’s first session took place in December. The body consists of 20 members, 11 of which are civil society representatives.47 The government had committed to forming the council as part of its Strategy for Development of the Civil Society, adopted in February 2022.48 It remains to be seen whether the new body will have an impact on relations between the state and civil society, already strained as they are due to government’s behavior and rhetoric.
• The two mass shootings on May 3 and 4 gave birth to the largest protest movement in this century in Serbia, under the moniker “Serbia against Violence.”49 The protests were mostly organized by pro-EU opposition parties but were labelled as “civic” and had no politicians as speakers until the very end when elections were announced.50 Different student organizations51 and civil society organizations joined or publicly supported the protests, while a group of civil society organizations called Stand up against Violence created plans of action to achieve protest demands.52 The movement held 27 protests in Belgrade, only stopping as the election campaign began.53
• The protestors’ demands included the resignation of the minister of the interior, the head of the BIA, and the members of the REM council, a ban on violent reality TV shows, revocation of national broadcasting licenses for the propagandistic progovernment TV stations Pink and Happy, and a ban on progovernment tabloids.54 The demands were made due to the government’s perceived responsibility for allowing mass shootings to happen, but also over the atmosphere of violence in Serbian society fostered by progovernment propaganda and the government’s authoritarian tendencies and tolerance of harmful media content in exchange for media support.
• Besides the central protests in Belgrade, Serbia against Violence protests were held in around 40 cities and municipalities across Serbia, demonstrating a certain awakening of dissent throughout the country. More than 170 different rallies took place between May and July alone.55
• During 2023, there were several cases of authorities controversially accusing protestors of “calling for a violent change of constitutional order.” Tabloid journalist Milovan Brkić was arrested during the Serbia against Violence protests and later sentenced for that offense over his comments on one of the rallies.56 Another journalist, Boško Savković—who is also the cochair of the EU-Serbia Joint Consultative Committee, a platform that connects the European Economic and Social Committee and Serbian civil society—was arrested on the same charges for allegedly carrying a banner with a a doll depicting Vučić being hanged.57 Savković denied that the doll was his, but pleaded guilty and received a six-month suspended sentence, stating he accepted the charges out of fear.58 After a protest against electoral irregularities on December 24 , when violence erupted at the entrance to Belgrade City Hall, several protestors, including students, were also accused of calling for a violent change the constitutional order. Some of the protestors subsequently pleaded guilty to the charges to get a suspended sentence and avoid prison time. Police were found to have used excessive force on the protestors.59
• The 2023 Belgrade Pride Parade took place on September 9 without any major incidents. The previous year, the Ministry of the Interior had banned the Pride Parade, which that year was taking place as part of the Europride festival the Serbian capital was hosting, due to security concerns, but legal loopholes had allowed it to be held nonetheless..60
• Another important civic initiative in 2023 was the ProGlas (Pro-vote) initiative, created during the election campaign as a get-out-the-vote campaign launched by several public figures61 and later signed by almost 200 000 citizens.62 Despite not being a formal organization, ProGlas remained active after the December elections, even organizing a large rally in Belgrade on December 30.63

• Attacks on journalists remain an issue of concern. According to a database maintained by the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (IJAS), there were 183 attacks on journalists in 2023, which the associated defined as physical attacks, threats, or pressure directed against journalists or their property. That number represents a significant increase from last year and the second-highest number of attacks since the database was started in 2008.64
• Attacks and pressure on United Group media outlets, including N1, Nova, and the Danas newspaper, have been especially frequent, and ruling party members and tabloid media have often targeted them for allegedly working against the state, especially in periods of heightened tensions with Kosovo. Serbian prime minister Ana Brnabić of the SNS even accused these media outlets of “waging a hybrid war against Serbia,”65 and SNS legislator Milenko Jovanov labeled them as “fascist media” that was being used by the opposition to create an atmosphere that could lead to civil war.66 N1 and Nova were also targeted by far-right protestors in front of their offices, while the police refused to intervene.67
• Individual journalists working for United Group media were also personally targeted by high-level officials and tabloid media, and were accused of orchestrating mobs68 and of asking questions that harmed the state’s image by making accusations against the state of Serbia with their questions.69 PEN International, the free expression NGO, had to relocate Serbian writer and TV host Marko Vidojković abroad due to repeated, serious death threats.70
• The use of SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation) targeting media remained an issue of concern. The Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE) reported that Serbia was 10th among 35 analyzed European countries in 2023 in terms of the total number of SLAPPs filed, and 8th in cases per capita.71 Investigative media outlet Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (KRIK) now faces 12 such lawsuits.72 In another prominent SLAPP, Vladimir Đukanović, an SNS member of parliament and the lawyer of Predrag Koluvija— accused in the high-profile Jovanjica case of operating a massive illegal marijuana plantation under apparent state protection—sued an investigative journalist for NIN magazine, Vuk Cvijić, in October.73
• Two key media laws, the Law on Electronic Media and the Law on Public Information and Media, were adopted in the Serbian parliament in October. Despite the government’s claims that the laws are in line with its 2020 Media Strategy and the European Commission’s assessment that their adoption had led to some progress in promoting freedom of expression, the laws were criticized by media and civil society organizations.74 Critics claim that the laws strengthen the state’s influence over the media by legalizing media ownership by state-owned companies, including Telekom Srbija, which already has a strong hold on the media market.
• REM still has not decided on awarding the fifth national broadcasting frequency, which it was slated to decide on by late 2022.75 The favorite to win the license was the frequent government critical Nova, but REM postponed its decision due to its court proceeding against the TV station, which had sued REM over the delay in granting the frequency.76 The first four frequencies were awarded in 2022 to four strongly progovernment TV stations, a decision that also was highly criticized.77 The entire process of awarding frequencies appears to clearly be politically driven, even though REM is meant to act as an independent regulator.
• The tug-of-war between the state-owned Telekom Srbija and United Group continued in 2023. Telekom Srbija continued offering citizens extremely favorable deals for cable TV service if they break their contracts with United Group’s broadcaster SBB,78 and the state-owned company received open support from government representatives79 and progovernment media.80
• Many of the demands of the Serbia against Violence protests were concerned with media freedom. The protestors demanded a ban on violent reality shows, a revocation of national broadcasting licenses to propagandistic TV stations Pink and Happy, a ban on pro-government tabloids, and resignations from the REM council.81 These demands were made due to the perceived role of progovernment propaganda and the government’s tolerance of harmful media content in creating an atmosphere of violence in Serbian society, which in turn was seen as enabling the two mass shootings in May.
• In a retrial of former senior SNS high official Dragoljub Simonović, who was accused of ordering an arson attack against journalist Milan Jovanović in 2019, Simonović was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison.82 Proceedings before the Court of Appeals are still ongoing.
• In February 2024, the Court of Appeals revealed that it had decided the previous April to overturn guilty verdicts against members of security services convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to 100 years in prison for the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija in 1999, during the rule of Slobodan Milošević.83 The unconfirmed news about the appellate court’s decision had been circulating since September 2023.84 The Ćuruvija case had been the most important trial in Serbia’s history concerning attacks on journalists, and had previously represented the only successful prosecution of a journalist’s murder in the country.

• Sixty-five cities and municipalities held snap local elections on December 17, including Belgrade, which last held local elections in April 2022. Regular local elections for the other half of the country’s municipalities are scheduled to be held by mid-2024.
• The most contested election was in Belgrade, where the opposition was believed to stand a good chance for victory. However, it was the SNS that won the highest share of the vote, with 39.08 percent and 49 City Assembly seats, while the opposition SPN coalition won 34.63 percent and 43 seats. The other ruling party, SPS, won 4.75 percent and five seats, meaning that the two ruling parties together did not control a majority of City Assembly seats. Voters also gave seven seats to the NADA coalition, and six seats to the populist MI-GIN.85 Results in Belgrade mirrored the results of national elections, albeit with a significantly weaker result for the SNS and a much better result for Serbia against Violence. The SNS won most other local elections throughout the country, including regional election in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in northern Serbia.86
• However, several electoral irregularities and controversies bring these results into question (see Electoral Process). Protests were held in Belgrade, Ljig, and Novi Pazar to dispute election results or postelection developments. Some domestic and international observers stated that the election results in Belgrade “do not represent the will of the citizens”87 and that the “victory in Belgrade was stolen from the opposition.”88 The opposition did not recognize the official results there, which prompted another political crisis and another wave of protests in the capital.89
• In the western town of Ljig, where several opposition lists managed to win a majority of seats in the municipal assembly, two opposition councilors subsequently switched their allegiance to the SNS under pressure from the ruling party. This led to relatively large protests in the town.90
• The allegations of fraudulent voter migration in the local elections point to a possible reason why the government decided to hold snap local elections in only around half of municipalities—those areas not holding elections provided a pool of voters who could be shifted to the constituencies in play (see Electoral Process). Voter migration concerns were also raised by one local politician as a justification why he can’t oppose the SNS,91 as well as by a local SNS party official in a municipality where the SPS was in power and was accused engaging in similar illicit tactics.92 This voter migration has already undermined local democracy by eroding of civic trust, and could have devastating effects in the future unless addressed.
• Research by the CRTA showed that there are wide clientelist networks within the system of social welfare centers, with local mayors playing important roles. More than 700,000 citizens throughout Serbia use social welfare centers’ services, and they come under political pressure in order to secure their votes.93
• The December snap local elections were triggered94 by the coordinated mass resignations of local mayors, only several months before regular local elections were set to occur.95 This demonstrated the extent to which local democracy was fully subordinated to central-level politics, and local mayors were acting in the interests of the party rather than the citizens who elected them. Only in Belgrade were there opposition demands for snap elections, due to the ruling coalition holding a very thin majority there with three years left of its mandate.96
• The Serbia against Violence protests were held throughout Serbia, including in numerous smaller municipalities where the citizens are much more vulnerable to political pressures from the local government than in the capital city. This may have long-term effects on local democracy through increased citizen engagement.97
• The case of children who were not allowed to be enrolled in kindergarten in the municipality of Pećinci—allegedly as a form of political pressure by a local ruling-party strongman due to their parents’ opposition political activity—was not resolved despite announcements of an inspection by the Ministry of Education and intervention by the commissioner for the protection of equality.98 The children finally enrolled in the kindergarten in the following 2023-24 schoolyear, but the parents rejected the official explanation that the kindergarten’s capacity had been expanded and said the outcome represents a “defeat rather than a victory.”99

• The process of constitutional reform, launched in 2021 and confirmed through a referendum in January 2022, was largely concluded in 2023 with the adoption in February of five judicial laws: three on the judiciary and two on the prosecution.100 The constitutional reforms were primarily aimed at improving the independence of the judiciary, replacing the role of the parliament in electing judges and prosecutors through inclusion of parliament-appointed “prominent lawyers” to the High Judicial Council and High Prosecutorial Council. The Council of Europe’s Venice Commission made positive statements about the laws’ adoption, but experts remained concerned about some of the provisions, including the possibility of political influence thanks to the important role played by the parliament-appointed prominent lawyers in the two bodies. Civil society organizations also claim that a vast majority of their recommendations during consultations with the government were rejected without proper consideration.101
• This reform only came into effect in May after the appointment of these prominent lawyers to the High Judicial Council and the State Prosecutorial Council. However, their appointment was not without controversy, as only one out of eight lawyers across both councils was appointed by the required two-thirds majority in the parliament. The absence of such majorities for the other seven triggered a backup mechanism and they were appointed by a five-member commission comprised of the parliamentary speaker, the presidents of the Supreme and Constitutional Courts, the supreme public prosecutor, and the ombudsman.102 The Venice Commission and expert observers warned against the possibility of appointments made through this backup mechanism becoming a norm. Concerns were also raised about the prominence and expertise of some of the appointed candidates, as well as their previous political affiliation with the ruling party.103
• The appointment of judges and prosecutors to the new judicial and prosecutorial councils brought other controversies during the year. While the High Judicial Council restarted the ongoing process of selecting judges in order to implement it under the new law’s requirements, the State Prosecutorial Council decided to continue its procedure based on the old law, to criticism from some prosecutors and civil society.104
• Concerns were raised in February regarding political pressure on the prosecution after two prosecutors were transferred from their positions in the special anticorruption department only days after they indicted six individuals in relation to a high-profile $7.5-million corruption case at the public electricity company Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS).105 The transfer was ordered by the Belgrade Higher Public Prosecutor Nenad Stefanović, who was often accused of being an extension of the executive’s influence in the prosecution.106 The two prosecutors unsuccessfully opposed the transfer, and lawyers and citizens held several protests in Belgrade.107
• The prosecution’s passivity also remained an issue of concern in 2023, especially when it came to politically sensitive corruption and organized crime cases, some of which were never pursued (see Corruption, Electoral Process). The judiciary’s efficiency also came into questions after numerous delays, postponements and exemption of evidence in the “Jovanjica” case, and in the related “Jovanjica 2” case brought against members of the state security apparatus suspected of protecting the marijuana operation. The latter trial is yet to begin after more than 20 postponements.108 The inspectors who discovered the plantation were all demoted in September.109 One of them accused Vladimir Đukanović—a SNS member of parliament and the lawyer of Koluvija, the marijuana plantation’s alleged owner—of trying to bribe him and the other inspectors to cover up the case.110

• According to the Serbian government’s report on the implementation of its action plan for Chapter 23 within the EU accession process, which dealt with the judiciary and fundamental rights, 85 out of 117 required anticorruption measures were fully or successfully implemented and 16 were partially implemented. The remaining 16 measures mostly concern the work of the Anti-Corruption Council, a Serbian governmental body whose capacities should be increased and whose reports the government should take into account.111 A November 2023 European Commission report on Serbia noted “limited progress” over the past year, and said corruption was prevalent in many areas and remained an issue of concern.112
• GRECO assessed in December that Serbia has satisfactorily implemented 10 out of 13 recommendations monitored under the anticorruption body’s fourth monitoring round, which focused on the judiciary and parliament, and also said that the remaining three recommendations had been partially implemented. This represents slight progress since 2022, largely due to the adoption of the new judicial laws (see Judicial Framework and Independence).113 There is still no information about the implementation of the 24 GRECO recommendations under the fifth round, which focused on corruption in central governments and law enforcement agencies.
• A new National Anti-Corruption Strategy still has not been adopted, even though the previous one expired at the end of 2018. Work on the new strategy finally began in 2023, with the working group responsible for drafting the strategy forming in March and public debate ending in September. The government, however, has not yet adopted the strategy as of the end of 2023.114
• The Law on Linear Infrastructure Projects, which for years has opened space for corruption through exempting large projects from public procurement regulations, has expired and was annulled in July. However, in October, the parliament adopted115 a special law on the EXPO 2027 exhibition that exempted this significant project as well as the planned Serbia National Stadium—projects worth around $600 million and $450 million, respectively—from public procurement regulations.116 The Law on Public Procurement was also amended in October, but without any significant changes.
• The prosecution of high-level corruption remains problematic in Serbia. Even though the European Commission assessed that the number of convictions and investigations for high-level corruption increased from mid-2022 to mid-2023, the number of indictments decreased during the same period, and there were no cases of defendants forfeiting assets after being convicted of corruption.117 Delays are also common. In the case of Belgrade mayor Aleksandar Šapić’s chief of cabinet Nenad Milanović, who was recorded offering to fix tenders to a private company, prosecutors took more than eight months to question him.118
• One of the high-profile trials against the organized crime group of Veljko Belivuk also continued in 2023. The investigative media outlet KRIK published recordings of a high-ranking police special forces member implying that the officer had a role in organizing the group that Belivuk’s organization originated from.119 There was no follow-up, and President Vučić repeatedly declined to comment.120
• The US Department of the Treasury sanctioned BIA director Aleksandar Vulin in July due to his actions that had “advanced corruption within Serbia’s governing institutions.” Vulin was accused of “leveraging his authority for personal gain, including involvement in a drug trafficking ring.”121 The decision had no immediate consequences, but Vulin eventually resigned from his position in November, citing his wish to remove the danger of Western threats and blackmail against Serbia.122

Author: Nikola Burazer is a political scientist from Belgrade, Serbia. He is Program Director at the Belgrade-based think tank Centre for Contemporary Politics and Executive Editor at European Western Balkans media portal. He holds an MA in Nationalism Studies from Central European University (CEU) in Budapest and a BA in Political Science from the University of Belgrade.