STRASBOURG – With 461 votes in favor and 52 against, members of the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Serbia calling for an investigation into the elections held in December. The resolution calls on the European Commission to send an expert mission to Serbia to assess the situation and lay the groundwork for a dialogue that would restore trust in institutions, following the example of the “Priebe reports” written for North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
European Parliament notes with serious concern the extensive evidence collected by the international and domestic observers showing activities leading up to and during election day that may have altered the outcome of the elections and may have critically impacted the results of the Belgrade municipal elections, in particular, and seriously undermined the legitimacy of the parliamentary elections.
The European Parliament calls for an independent international investigation by respected international legal experts and institutions into the irregularities of the parliamentary, provincial and municipal elections, with special attention to the elections to the Belgrade City Assembly, as certain allegations, including those regarding organised voter migration at local level, go beyond the scope covered by the OSCE/ODIHR reports. EP supports the prompt deployment of an ad hoc fact-finding mission to Serbia, with the participation of Parliament.
The resolution calls for the suspension of EU funding to Serbia if Serbian authorities are unwilling to implement key electoral recommendations if investigation findings indicate the involvement of Serbian authorities in electoral fraud.
Numerous problems in the electoral process are also highlighted, such as the absence of media pluralism in the campaign and the passive role of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM), as well as the dominant role of the President of the Republic of Serbia, who was not a candidate.
“The overall campaign was characterized by even more extreme polarisation, aggressive rhetoric, personal discreditation, verbal abuse and inflammatory language; whereas pressure on public sector employees, misuse of public resources and voter inducement schemes raised concerns about voters’ abilities to make a choice free from undue pressure; whereas these practices, in addition to some challenges in accessing public venues for the opposition, tilted the playing field and blurred the line between the state and the governing party, at odds with international standards; whereas Russiansponsored outlets Sputnik Serbia and Russia Today Balkan actively contributed to spreading disinformation, essentially about opposition candidates”, European Parliament states.
Special attention is given to the phenomenon of so-called phantom voters from municipalities where local elections were not held and from other countries, primarily in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who were allegedly organized to vote in Belgrade.
“Serbian civil society organisation CRTA carried out an in-depth analysis, based on limited data and resources, and made the very conservative estimate is that inaccuracies in the voter register account for at least 30 000 voters; whereas they have firm evidence that this inaccuracy was part of a strategy of illegal and illegitimate electoral engineering to influence the election results and distort the will of the voters; whereas people were being transported from all over Serbia and abroad (Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro) to vote in municipal elections in Belgrade; whereas even government officials and politicians from BiH openly voted in the Belgrade municipal elections; whereas the Serbian Government has defended this practice as legitimate”, European Parliament states.
The resolution also addresses the government’s response to criticisms following the elections. Members of the European Parliament condemn the orchestrated attacks by Serbian officials on election observers, including Members of the European Parliament and call for a return to respectful and constructive discourse.
MEPs urge the Serbian authorities to take all necessary steps to avoid any further disinformation campaigns against election observers and to establish conditions that allow national and international election observers to effectively do their work, as well as to protect them from any violence, threats, retaliation, adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of the legitimate exercise of their rights and freedoms.
The resolution commends the work of the domestic observers from the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA) and the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID)”.