On 19 October, Citizen Lab confirmed that University of Belgrade Rector Vladan Đokić's phone was infected with NSO Group's Pegasus in 2026. Prosecutor Rade Bajić, who had investigated alleged corruption in a plan to sell a protected Belgrade building to Jared Kushner, received an Apple threat notification in August. His device is still being analysed. SHARE Foundation, Citizen Lab and Amnesty International have now found at least 15 people in Serbia targeted with advanced spyware this year. Serbia votes on 25 October.
The cases deserve attention in Brussels because they test whether the EU's spyware safeguards mean anything beyond its own territory.
The strongest case for the status quo
Governments have a real need for lawful interception. Terrorism, organised crime and child exploitation investigations increasingly run through encrypted devices, and a blanket ban on intrusion tools would leave investigators blind. The EU has also been cautious about conditioning candidate-country relations on domestic surveillance law, which is a sensitive area of national security. Pressing too hard risks pushing a candidate state toward other partners.
That is a fair concern. It does not follow that nothing should be demanded.
What the EU has already said
The European Parliament's June 2023 recommendation, adopted 411 to 97 with 37 abstentions after a year-long inquiry into Pegasus and similar tools, set out a coherent test. Spyware use should be limited to exceptional cases, for a predefined purpose and a limited time. It should be allowed only in states that have investigated abuse allegations and aligned their laws with Venice Commission and EU Court of Justice standards. Data covered by lawyer-client privilege, and data belonging to politicians, doctors or the media, should be shielded absent evidence of criminal activity. Targets should be notified afterwards, and oversight should be independent.
The European Media Freedom Act turned part of this into binding law for member states. The Commission states that the Act provides strong safeguards for the confidentiality of journalistic sources and communications against intrusive surveillance software. Most of its provisions entered into application on 8 August 2025.
The Act protects media actors, though, and its reach is the EU's member states. Serbia is not one. Đokić is a university rector and Bajić a prosecutor, so neither falls within the journalist-focused provisions even in a member state. The 2023 recommendation is also non-binding. The framework that exists is a good one, but it was built for the Union's inside, and the Serbian cases fall outside it.
Why the Serbian cases matter
The pattern is hard to wave away as incidental. According to The Record, Đokić has supported a student protest movement demanding that former president Aleksandar Vučić be permanently removed from government. Citizen Lab says authorities raided his offices in late March and seized computers and servers after he refused to help a crackdown on student protesters. Bajić was moved off the Kushner-related case in November 2025 without explanation, and says he believes the spyware targeting was tied to that case. The Record reports no official response from Serbian authorities, and NSO did not respond to a request for comment.
Citizen Lab's earlier research on a student-movement member found Pegasus delivered through a zero-click iMessage exploit, with high-confidence indicators of infection from December 2025 to January 2026. A zero-click attack needs no mistake by the victim. Good digital hygiene cannot defend against it, which is why the legal safeguards matter.
None of this proves who ordered each infection, and attribution to a specific Serbian agency remains unestablished in the sources reviewed here. But Pegasus is marketed to governments, and researchers say Serbian authorities have used it against regime opponents. The timing, days before a national election, is what should concern EU policymakers.
What proportionate policy looks like
The wrong response is reflexive prohibition. Banning lawful-intercept capability outright would be disproportionate, and it would be unenforceable in practice. The better approach applies the Parliament's own test to the countries the EU wants to bring closer.
- Make the 2023 criteria accession benchmarks. Independent judicial authorisation, post-hoc notification, and protected categories (opposition figures, prosecutors, academics, journalists) should be measurable conditions in rule-of-law monitoring, not aspirations.
- Fund forensic capacity. The Parliament called for an EU Tech Lab offering device screening and forensic support. Serbian civil society and Citizen Lab did the work that exposed these cases. Public funding for independent forensics is cheap relative to the harm.
- Tighten export scrutiny. The recommendation urged in-depth review of export licences and stronger enforcement of EU export controls. Vendors that say they do not serve repressive governments should be asked to prove it.
- Keep the standard proportionate. The question is never whether a state may investigate serious crime. It is whether a court approved it, whether it was necessary, and whether anyone can review it afterwards.
This is a pro-innovation position. A security-tools market that depends on a few vendors selling to unaccountable buyers invites a backlash that harms legitimate encryption and security research too. Clear, enforceable rules protect that market and the people who depend on it.
The test next week
The EU cannot credibly demand that Belgrade respect journalists, prosecutors and academics while its own spyware rules cover only the people inside the Union. Using the standards Parliament has already written as concrete accession conditions would cost little and would show whether the safeguards have any force at the border.