Reports cited by Serbia in response to a Freedom House request paint a bleak picture of democracy in the country, the European part of the Western Balkans.

The Serbian government recently published a detailed rebuttal to Freedom House's annual "Nations in Transit" report, which deducted 0.25 points in one area and placed it in the category of hybrid regimes. However, there is no sign that the government is willing to discuss why Serbia has for the first time moved closer to countries that do not have the advantage of being called democratic.When the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) came to power in 2012, Serbia's average Freedom House score on a scale of 1 to 7 was 4.36, categorizing it as a semi-firm democracy. Since then, the international organization has recorded no progress in any of the seven areas it oversees, only regression - before the latest drop in corruption scores, Serbia's score had been recalculated as many as ten times since 2012, each time downward. The average score of the seven areas, which include electoral conditions, media freedom, judiciary and others, is now 3.96.

In other words, it is below the level separating semi-reinforced democracies and hybrid regimes, which is 4. The government attempted to refute the latest revision by claiming that there has been no further deterioration in the area of corruption. To this end, it cited reports from other international organizations that have yet to move Serbia into the category that designates states in which democratic institutions are largely a facade of authoritarian rule. However, the government has