In the reporting period (November 2025 – April 2026), Serbia moved visibly further away from its goal of European Union membership, slipping from stagnation into open backsliding.
It is no longer merely a matter of the authorities persistently refusing to fully implement priority reform measures, but of actively dismantling what had previously been praised — albeit imperfect — as a success, such as judicial reform. In order to preserve political control over institutions that had begun to perform their duties despite mounting pressure, the authorities clumsily abandoned the previous simulation of reform efforts and good intentions. This simulation was then revived at full speed through the establishment of new bodies and mechanisms and the drafting of numerous long-overdue regulations. At the same time, the space for public participation in the drafting of legislation and public policies has been systematically narrowed, both normatively and in practice, with this trend paradoxically being formally justified by the need to accelerate reforms within the framework of the European Union accession process.
The abuse of institutions, centralisation of power, selective application of the law, and suppression of critical voices have continued unabated. The student movement and the opposition are calling for snap parliamentary elections as a way out of the current social and political crisis, yet the authorities still have not dared to take that step. Meanwhile, local elections in several municipalities have once again demonstrated a deeply uneven playing field in favour of the ruling parties, as well as a shift from subtle mechanisms of voter influence towards open intimidation. Through a wave of dismissals within the police, the authorities are seeking to cement political control over this instrument of force and law (non-)enforcement, which — alongside the media — has played a key role in the controversial management of the crisis. Efforts to combat organised crime and high-level corruption hit a wall once investigations reached government ministers and are now being actively undermined, even as the authorities attempt to present favourable statistical indicators on paper. The implementation of the action plans for Chapters 23 and 24 has been almost entirely overshadowed by the Reform Agenda, which itself is being implemented equally poorly in the area of Fundamentals.
It is particularly important that timely, increasingly clear, and direct messages are coming from Brussels regarding the negative trends in the country and their departure from European values and standards. The announcement of a potential suspension of funds allocated to Serbia under the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans in response to these developments resonated strongly with the public as an example of the long-awaited strict application of the conditionality mechanism, which has been embedded in the framework of the accession process from the very beginning and further reinforced by the new enlargement methodology.
While positive developments are being celebrated in the region — such as the launch of the drafting process for Montenegro’s EU Accession Treaty and the political change brought about by elections in Hungary, whose outgoing regime had long undermined the European average in
terms of the rule of law and obstructed EU foreign policy — the Serbian authorities are becoming increasingly isolated, even refusing to participate in the EU-Western Balkans summit last December. Serbia’s operational membership in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) as of May 2026 remains one of the few positive developments for citizens and businesses alike, as well as a rare example of the country’s gradual integration into the European Union.
Although citizens who would vote in favour of Serbia’s accession to the EU still outnumber those opposed to it, they do not constitute an absolute majority. Recent public opinion surveys show that many Serbian citizens perceive the EU primarily as a geopolitical actor rather than a values-based community, and remain sceptical about the EU’s intentions towards Serbia in the enlargement process. The prEUgovor coalition once again emphasises the need for European officials to improve communication with the public in Serbia and for the EU to become more actively engaged in resolving the current political crisis in the country, in order to restore citizens’ trust in its normative and transformative power. prEUgovor also recalls that the credibility of the enlargement policy depends not only on the reforms undertaken by candidate countries, but also on the pace at which the Union prepares itself for future enlargement. The coalition therefore calls for this process to be accelerated and for candidate countries to be included in discussions on the necessary reforms.