“Foreign Agents” Law Initiative in Serbia – Comparative overview with legislation in Russia, Georgia, and Hungary

MPs from the Serbian Government’s pro-Russian coalition partner – Movement of Socialists, headed by the Deputy Prime Minister, Aleksandar Vulin – submitted the Bill on the Special Registry of Agents of Foreign Influence to the Parliament on November 29, 2024. 

The proposal is substantially similar to the one submitted by the government of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, and exercises high matches to the idea announced by the Serb political fraction in Montenegro, which currently holds the position of the Speaker of Parliament.

Below is a comparative overview of four legislative pieces – from Serbia, Russia, Georgia, and Hungary – while the analysis was also cross-referenced with similar laws or their proposals in Republika Srpska, Slovakia, and Kyrgyzstan. The similarity between all these countries lies in their authoritarian inclinations, following the Russian playbook, where stigmatization of civil society, media, and individuals as “foreign agents,” with accompanying enforcement mechanisms, has become one of the main tools in exercising authoritarian control.

While Serbia’s proposal seems more liberal, requiring a minimum of 50% of organizational funding to originate from foreign funds for obligatory registration in the special register, the manner in which it sets definitions of the “foreign agent,” and especially that of “political activity,” together with its control mechanisms and sanctions, makes it a (rudimentary) version of the Russian legislation.

Read the full overview below.