Police have entered the offices of several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Serbia over suspicions of alleged illegal spending of funds received from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
It remains unclear whether similar scrutiny will be applied to state institutions that have also received significant funding from this agency in previous years, which the administration of newly elected President Donald Trump allegedly intends to shut down.
The prosecution has announced that it has begun collecting data on the activities of the Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA), Civic Initiatives, the Centre for Practical Politics, and the Trag Foundation. “All documentation related to USAID donations will be taken from these four NGOs, and discussions will be held with those responsible for how the funds were spent. The Special Anti-Corruption Department has requested documentation from the National Bank of Serbia and the Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering to verify the financial transactions of these NGOs,” said the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office (VJT).
The NGOs have not given statements to journalists but have communicated via social media.
They confirmed that police had entered their offices and that they were cooperating with the authorities.
“Civil society plays a vital role in the development of a democratic and pluralistic society and should operate freely without unnecessary pressure,” the European Commission stated regarding the police raids on several NGOs. We are closely and with great concern following these developments,” a spokesperson for the European Commission told N1.
Previous investigations into NGO finances
This is not the first time the finances of these NGOs have come under scrutiny.
In 2020, the Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering, under the Ministry of Finance, compiled a list of media outlets, NGOs, and civic groups for financial investigation.
“This is an obvious sign that Serbia is entering a new phase of overt repression against dissenters and regime critics. While it is officially being carried out under the pretext of investigating the spending of USAID funds, the real reason is to suppress critical thinking and the activities of civil society organisations,” said Filip Ejdus, a professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade and one of the founders of the ProGlas initiative. We are also seeing government-aligned media spinning this as some kind of fight against a ‘colour revolution’,” Ejdus told BBC Serbian.
The police raids on NGO offices are occurring amid months-long anti-government protests in Serbia.
Following the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad, which killed 15 people and seriously injured two others, protests have been held across Serbia demanding accountability for the tragedy.
For three months, students across the country have been blocking university faculties and organising demonstrations, calling on relevant institutions, especially the judiciary, to start fulfilling their responsibilities. CRTA is one of the organisations supporting the student protests and has run a public campaign for them in Belgrade.
What the NGOs are saying
On Wednesday, 26 February, CRTA stated that police had been in their offices for 24 hours.
“The copying of project documentation is taking a long time—there’s a massive amount of it. We document everything thoroughly and in accordance with the law (project reports, donor reports, audit reports, financial statements…). Maybe they didn’t expect us to have so much documentation,” CRTA posted on X.
Dragan Popović from the Centre for Practical Politics wrote on X that his organisation had no connection to USAID and that the investigation was an act of repression by an authoritarian regime against civil society.
“Police have requested documentation from the Centre for Practical Politics, which has never received USAID funding and has had no active projects for years,” he wrote.
Without prior notice, police entered the offices of Civic Initiatives with only a verbal order from the prosecutor’s office, the organisation told BBC Serbian.
About ten police officers, some armed, entered the organisation’s offices, and Ksenija Nikić, manager at Civic Initiatives, said the situation was unsettling. They learned details of why the police had visited them from media reports. She explained that they had only one project linked to USAID and that it had been suspended. “We have provided all the documentation and are cooperating with the police,” she added.
Trag Foundation also confirmed that police had visited their offices and that they were cooperating with state authorities.
European Fact-Checking Standards Network criticises police raid on CRTA
The European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN) has condemned the police raid on the offices of its member CRTA, which runs the fact-checking platform Istinomer.rs.
“This is an unacceptable attack on civil society, freedom of expression, and fact-checking,” EFCSN stated on its official website.
Stevan Dojčinović, editor of the investigative journalism website KRIK, described the police raids on four non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as a significant step towards a Belarus-style dictatorship in Serbia.
“From the very statement by the chief public prosecutor of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office (VJT) in Belgrade, Nenad Stefanović, it is clear that the whole thing is a setup,” he wrote on X.
He also shared a photo of Ana Brnabić, the current Speaker of the Serbian Parliament and former Prime Minister, standing at a podium displaying a USAID sticker, while holding up a T-shirt that read in English: “Invest in Serbia.”
On social media, many users have been sharing past announcements from state institutions highlighting their cooperation with USAID, as well as photos of top government officials meeting with agency representatives and details about USAID funding for various government projects. One user posted a May 2023 announcement showing Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić shaking hands with USAID Administrator Samantha Power.
“On this occasion, President Vučić emphasised Serbia’s commitment to strengthening comprehensive relations with the United States and expressed particular gratitude for the assistance that USAID has provided to our country through its programmes,” the Serbian Presidency stated at the time.
What the Serbian Prosecutor’s Office says
The investigation was triggered by statements from high-ranking US officials about alleged financial misuse, possible money laundering, and the improper spending of American taxpayer funds in Serbia and other countries.
Caroline Leavitt, a White House spokesperson, recently criticised USAID projects, including one in Serbia, as wasteful.
“One and a half million dollars were allocated to promote DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) in workplaces in Serbia,” Leavitt mentioned.
The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade announced that it had reached out to the US Department of Justice to obtain relevant data regarding USAID’s alleged questionable financial dealings.
“The allocation and spending of USAID funds are not automatically accessible to the prosecutor’s office; rather, USAID itself decides which data to provide. They only share information once the prosecutor’s office has proven that there are concrete suspicions of irregularities and money laundering,” the VJT statement said.
The statement also listed all US officials who have criticised USAID, starting with President Donald Trump, followed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and billionaire Elon Musk, who holds a special role in the Trump administration overseeing federal budget cuts.
The Special Anti-Corruption Department is currently investigating whether there has been abuse of office and money laundering, said Stefanović, the chief public prosecutor in Belgrade. “Excessive funds held in the accounts of several NGOs or affiliated consulting firms in Serbia, combined with a non-transparent allocation process that benefits only a small circle of organisations and the absence of comprehensive financial reports, raises reasonable suspicion about the lawful use of USAID funds,” the prosecutor’s office stated.
Foreign agents and NGOs
At the end of November, two MPs from the Socialist Movement, a party within the ruling coalition, submitted a draft law to the Serbian Parliament proposing a special registry for foreign influence agents.
The party was founded by Aleksandar Vulin, now Serbia’s Deputy Prime Minister, who previously served as Defence Minister and head of the Security and Information Agency.
A nearly identical law, presented as a measure to enhance NGO transparency, was proposed and later withdrawn earlier this year in Republika Srpska, one of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s two entities.
A similar proposal was introduced and later scrapped in Montenegro as well.
The proposed Serbian law immediately drew criticism from the US State Department and representatives of the European Commission, who expressed concerns that it was incompatible with fundamental democratic values, including freedom of speech and expression.
In recent years, similar laws – reminiscent of Russia’s foreign agent law – have been adopted in Hungary and former Soviet republics such as Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, and Georgia, where they have sparked mass protests.
The State Department warned that such legislation could “restrict the space for civil society, stigmatise non-governmental organisations, and hinder the work of independent media.”
After two weeks of speculation about whether and when the bill would be placed on the parliamentary agenda, President Aleksandar Vučić put an end to the uncertainty. “Serbia will not adopt a law on foreign influence agents, even though many MPs from the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) believe there are good elements in it,” Vučić said in one of his frequent public addresses.
(BBC Serbia, 27.02.2025)