Last year, the City Municipality of Lazarevac suspended its public call for co-financing projects for the production of media content without a clear explanation, did not launch a new call, and reduced the budget line for this purpose to 0 dinars through a budget rebalance. As a result, media outlets in Lazarevac were left without this form of support, and they will not be able to rely on it this year either, since the budget provides no funds for this purpose.
Last year, Lazarevac announced a Call for Proposals to co-finance projects for the production of media content, open from 28 February to 31 March. After the statutory 90-day deadline (30 June) for publishing the results had passed, the public and the applicants still had not been informed of the outcome.
Only on 6 August was the decision to suspend the call published on the portal of the Unified Information System (JIS) of the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications. The decision states that the “Commission for the Call for Co-financing Projects for the Production of Media Content in the field of public information… failed to submit a reasoned proposal for a decision on the allocation of funds within the prescribed deadline.”
It later emerged that members of the project evaluation commission had no access to the submitted applications.
The editor-in-chief of the Prvo u centar portal, Maria Popović, told IJAS that her newsroom applied properly, but that there was no information whatsoever about the call.
“Nothing happened. I sent emails to the Municipality to see what was going on, but they completely ignored us. Then I found in the JAS database that the call had been suspended—something that was not published anywhere and I reported it. I filed a Freedom of Information request, and they replied that the JIS portal was not functioning and that this was why they did not publish the decision,” Popović explains.
In the response to the request received by the Pravo u centar newsroom, which IJAS had access to, the City Municipality states that “by reviewing JIS in the period from 25 June to 30 June 2025, it was established that the list with the proposed amounts of funding (which the project evaluation commission is supposed to create, editor’s note) was not visible, i.e., had not been submitted.” After that, the authorized official responsible for entering data into JIS contacted the commission members, “who stated that they did not have the ability to access the applications.” As the municipality further notes, “the official responsible for entering data and documents also contacted the system administrator regarding the situation and informed superiors that the deadline for adopting a decision on the allocation of funds had expired.”
In other words, the call collapsed—but no decision was made to launch a new one. Instead, the budget line was abolished through the 2025 budget rebalance of 21 October 2025. The originally planned 5 million dinars earmarked for project-based co-financing of media content was reduced to 0.
We asked the responsible officials in the City Municipality of Lazarevac where the funds planned for media co-financing last year had been redirected, but we received no response.
In the 2026 Budget Decision, this line item is not planned at all.
In response, the Pravo u centar newsroom sent an open letter to the City Municipality of Lazarevac, stating that “the local authorities are effectively abandoning their legal and constitutional obligation to ensure the realization of citizens’ right to public information.”
City municipalities are not legally obliged to announce a media co-financing call, but this type of support significantly facilitates the work of local media, which have now been left without part of their income.
Our interlocutor believes that the funds planned for the call still ended up with media outlets, but through other channels.
Given that the City Municipality of Lazarevac had regularly implemented such calls until last year, IJAS asked whether an analysis had been conducted in the meantime on the basis of which the municipality concluded that co-financing media projects is not in citizens’ interest, but we received no answer.
Ignoring the newsroom and denying access to information
On the other hand, our interlocutor says that the Pravo u centar newsroom is subjected to a form of institutional pressure and is being completely ignored by the Municipality and public utility companies.
“We can’t get answers anywhere. They don’t invite us to press conferences and other events, and they don’t invite us to municipal assembly sessions either, but I go regularly. No one prevents me from entering, but they behave arrogantly. At the last session, the assembly president called us an opposition media outlet,” the journalist says.
Popović also says that at the last session the president of the local assembly stated that there is no problem with all media receiving information about the activities of municipal bodies, but that he first needs to see whether they are accredited.
“Under the Statute of the Municipality of Lazarevac and the Rules of Procedure of the assembly, local media do not need to be accredited. They are not even required to notify the media, but they are obliged to inform citizens, through the media, about the time and agenda of the assembly, which again means they have to send a notice to media outlets. And they don’t do that,” says Maria Popović.
“Even the mayor said when he took office, i.e., he conveyed through one of his colleagues from the cabinet, that I shouldn’t expect anything from the Municipality, no support whatsoever. In short, we are completely ignored,” Popović concludes.
