The Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (IJAS) expresses serious concern over the way changes are being carried out in the management of Adria News Network (ANN) media, at a time when the regulatory process for the takeover of this media group by Alpac Capital has not yet been completed. Luxembourg’s independent audiovisual media authority, ALIA, confirmed on 18 August that the transaction has not yet been approved and that the process of issuing an opinion on the change of control over ANN is still ongoing.
Journalists and other media workers must come first, more than 1,000 employees of ANN across the region, their labour and professional rights, job security, and the right to be informed promptly and fully about changes that directly affect their work and the future of their newsrooms.
According to data from the Serbian Business Registers Agency, on 17 August the previous directors, i.e. legal representatives and part of the management, of the companies United Media Digital, Adria News, Dan Graf and Adria News Nova S, through which N1, Nova S, the Nova.rs portal, the Nova newspaper, the Radar weekly and the Danas daily operate, were replaced, with Alpac Capital’s CEO Pedro Vargas David taking their place. This change, carried out without prior notice to employees and before the transaction was regulatorily completed, has nonetheless further increased concern and uncertainty among journalists and media workers, particularly amid reports that changes to editorial positions could follow. The unions of these newsrooms have already requested an urgent meeting with the new director and written guarantees that there will be no interference in editorial policy and no threat to the positions of editors and journalists.
It is particularly concerning that these changes are taking place while the regulatory procedure is still ongoing. IJAS does not wish to prejudge the regulators’ decisions, but believes that changes to governance structures before the regulatory process is completed legitimately raise the question of whether actual control over the media is being established before the competent authorities have finished assessing the transaction.
Employees’ concerns are further justified by the experience of Euronews, which was acquired by Alpac Capital in 2022. The takeover was followed by a major redundancy and restructuring plan. According to journalists associations and unions reports, Euronews planned to lay off most of its permanent staff at its Lyon headquarters, while it was later reported that 175 out of a total of 370 employees had left the Lyon headquarters.
This is not only a matter of labour rights. N1, Nova, Danas, Radar and other ANN media play an extremely important role in preserving professional and critical journalism in Serbia and the region. Their editorial independence is therefore a matter of public interest. The European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) requires precisely for this reason that, in assessing media concentrations, not only the market aspect of a transaction be evaluated, but also its impact on media pluralism and editorial independence.
Concerns over this transaction are not new. As early as 2022, in connection with the Euronews takeover, the European Parliament noted that Alpac Capital was reported to have close ties to then Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Further questions were raised by investigations into the financing of the takeover itself, according to which significant funds were provided by a Hungarian state fund and a company linked to circles close to then Prime Minister Orbán. The fact that Euronews simultaneously operates with the support of European Commission funds, which until recently were allocated through a multi-year Framework Partnership Agreement, further underscores the need for transparency regarding ownership structures and the origin of capital used to run a media outlet partly financed by European taxpayers’ money.
The European Parliament subsequently, in October 2025, expressed concern over allegations that the Government of Serbia had negotiated with the owners of United Media with the aim of weakening independent media within that company, and warned that such conduct, if confirmed, would represent a serious attack on the already endangered media pluralism in Serbia.
IJAS therefore demands that Alpac Capital and the current management of ANN engage without delay with representative trade unions and employees, and provide employees and the public without delay with clear, written and verifiable guarantees on the protection of the labour and professional rights of journalists and other media workers, the preservation of jobs, and the editorial independence of all newsrooms within ANN. This demand is not merely a matter of good business practice: the European Commission’s Recommendation on internal safeguards for editorial independence and ownership transparency in the media sector, as well as the European Media Freedom Act, are precisely grounded in the need for concrete mechanisms that prevent ownership or business interests from influencing individual editorial decisions.
At a time when management changes have already begun while the regulatory assessment of the takeover is still ongoing, employees have every right to know what the new owner’s plans are and what concrete safeguards exist to ensure that changes in ownership and management do not lead to layoffs, pressure on journalists, or changes to editorial policy. We particularly expect Alpac Capital to publish and clearly explain the mechanisms for protecting editorial and operational independence that Alpac Capital and United Group announced in their joint statement on the sale of ANN, including contractual provisions on the separation of editorial and commercial functions and the preservation of an independent external advisory body, so that employees and the public can verify whether and how these mechanisms actually function in practice.
We expect the competent European regulators to specifically examine, before the process is completed, the consequences of the management changes already carried out, and to take into account the protection of media pluralism and editorial independence when making their decision.
Journalists and media workers must not become collateral damage of ownership and business transactions, nor should they learn about decisions that directly determine their professional future from public registers and the media rather than from their own management.
Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (IJAS)
Belgrade, 18 August 2026
