Experts are warning that the government-drafted media laws allow the state to remain a media owner, adding that the majority-state-owned Telekom Serbia played a huge role with a number of scandals in its wake.

Telekom Serbia pledged to pay 600 million Euro for the broadcast rights to the English Premier League on its Arena Sport channel, hugely overpaying to outbid its rivals primarily the United Group which held those rights for much less money earlier. Economy experts warned that the excessive price does not leave room for profits and was more of a political than a market-based decision but President Aleksandar Vucic hailed the deal as a win in open market competition.

Telekom Serbia was mentioned in a European Parliament report as a company suspected of abusing its dominant market position with the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) using it as a tool to increase its influence on the media.

Telekom launched a lobbying effort which led to the removal of an amendment from that report which listed the telecommunications company among others who were involved in scandals. Analysts said that this was the first time that the European Parliament mentioned a state-owned company as a tool to control the media.

The Serbian telecommunications company also waged a campaign against its main rival, United Group’s SBB cable services provider. Telekom Serbia’s campaign was waged in public institutions such as municipal administration buildings and state companies with its staff calling people to change from SBB to Telekom’s MTS. Stands were even put up in front of SBB branch offices and a telephone campaign was launched.

N1 receveived pictures of the forms to change from SBB to MTS being stored in SNS offices in New Belgrade.

Another dubious deal were the secret contracts the Chinese tech giant Huawei had with people closely connected to Telekom Serbia through offshore companies in Panama and the British Virgin Islands. Those contracts were revealed by the KRIK investigative portal as part of the Pandora Papers projects which showed that at least a million Euro was involved, some of which ended up in the pockets of a former Telekom CEO and a lawyer.

The Belgrade city authorities also dealt with Telekom at least once, buying tablet computers for some 5.5 million Euro allegedly without a public procurement process. The explanation was that the city government was working with Telekom on the Smart City project.

The public learned that Telekom Serbia made a deal with the Telenor mobile phone services provider in 2021. A Telekom statement said that the deal was fully in line with European standards and practices but N1 had access to internal Telekom documents which said that the goal of the deal with Telenor is to crush and completely destroy SBB.

The document said the goal was to achieve full content dominance over United Media channels. United Media is part of United Group. The publication of those documents drew warnings from experts of what they saw as a dangerous practice. Telekom Serbia CEO Vladimir Lucic denied those claims.

Opposition officials published Telekom’s contract with media magnate Igor Zezelj’s Wireless Media, adding that Zezelj used 38 million Euro of Telekom’s money to buy the pro-regime tabloid Kurir. Zezelj denied the opposition statements claiming that his company had strategic cooperation with Telekom Serbia.

Telekom Serbia bought Kopernikus Technology, the second largest cable operator in the country, in November 2018 from Srdjan Milovanovic (whose brother is a high-ranking SNS official) and a month later he bought the Prva and O2 TV stations. Telekom paid 195 million for Kopernikus and Milovanovic said he paid 180 million for the two stations. Media experts warned that the deals were made to expand state control over the media.