MECHANISM IN ACTION: Highgate lobbyists take Šolak’s manager to European Parliament meetings!
United Group owner Dragan Šolak has for the umpteenth time set in motion his political and media mechanism for destroying competition and has been trying to damage the reputation of Telekom Serbia in every possible way, weaken it, and eventually destroy it, removing thus the only obstacle to his unstoppable amassing of personal wealth. Huge amounts of money and an unscrupulous approach to business allow Šolak to push his interests to all manner of institutions, both in Serbia and abroad, which Kurir has reported on previously on a number of occasions.
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Pilipović the main player
The most recent actions of Šolak’s machinery have been aimed at the content of the European Parliament’s report on Serbia and the mention of Telekom in it. In addition to the fact that an aggressive campaign against Telekom as his business competitor – as well as against Adria Media Group as his media competitor – is underway in his media in relation to this, Kurir’s new findings reveal that since May 2021, United Group, alongside its lobbyists, has held at least three meetings with representatives of the European Parliament, which is also entered into official records. The documentation from these meetings indicates that Šolak’s main player in charge of United Group breaking into another European institution was Vice-President for Corporate Affairs at United Group, Dragica Pilipović – who, as Kurir has previously reported, went straight to the top management at United Group from a managerial position at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
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Three meetings in Brussels
Šolak hired Highgate, a consultancy from London, for these activities. Their lobbyists were present at the first meeting with the representatives of the European Parliament, held on 20 May 2021 online in Brussels. The official records state that the topic of the meeting was “freedom of media and rule of law, as related to the report on Serbia”. It is also specified that Dragica Pilipović from United Group and Tanja Albreht from Highgate were present too.
She is a senior advisor at this company. The second meeting was organized on 30 November 2021 in Bratislava and was also held online. The topic was similar – “freedom of media in Serbia, as related to the upcoming 2021 report on Serbia”. Theo Crutcher, Vice-President of Highgate was present alongside Dragica Pilipović. Pilipović met with the representatives of the European Parliament for the third time on 30 November 2022. This time lobbyists were not there, and the topic was “The Serbian media environment”. These meetings of United Group and their lobbyists with the representatives of the European Parliament show that Šolak is accusing Telekom through his media in his most recent campaign because it is protecting its own interests in the international institutions as well, while at the same time doing precisely the same thing against Telekom and for the purposes of increasing his personal wealth. However, there is something to this that goes far beyond the usual business moves and the nature of business to develop within a legal framework. It is Šolak’s routine use of non-transparent channels to get into different institutions and turn them into the protectors of his own interest and guarantors of his continued unscrupulous amassing of wealth.
Ties to the EBRD
The Dragica Pilipović case is one of the most illustrative examples of this. Kurir has already reported on her career development, which has brought her into the innermost circle of Šolak’s associates, enabling United Group to hide behind the credibility of the EBRD. Specifically, Šolak’s mechanism was focused on getting long-term support of this financial institution for his companies by making sure the bank was dragged into his business via an official partnership, but also to establish hidden ties via some EBRD managers.
At the time when Šolak received his first millions from the EBRD, Dragica Pilipović held a high-ranking position at this bank. After the bank officially entered into partnership with Šolak, she transferred to his company, where she now holds the position of Vice-President for Corporate Affairs at United Group. This circumstance has raised justified suspicions of a possible conflict of interests as the EBRD provided services to United Group as its client. In the world of business, such transfers are subjected to rigorous scrutiny in order to rule out even the slightest suspicion of corruption, influence peddling, and conflict of interests. Dragica Pilipović was with the EBRD since its founding in 1991. She held high-ranking posts at the bank, including Head of the Russia Team and, from 2003, Head of the Serbia and Montenegro Team. It was around this time, in 2004, that the EBRD first invested a sum of EUR 18.5 million in Šolak's SBB, an operator which is part of United Group. Moreover, the bank also invested in SBB's capital stock, becoming in this way the company's minority owner, with a million shares in its hands. This financial injection was crucial, enabling Šolak to start expanding his business in the region by purchasing an additional 25 local providers, introducing new services, and offering broadband internet.
Pilipović left the EBRD in 2008 and moved straight into the top management of SBB, a company that had become a strong regional player owing to the financial support of the EBRD. Since then, she has had key roles on the United Group team – previously as SBB CEO and currently as Chairwoman of the Board of the SBB Foundation and, since 2015, Vice-President for Corporate Affairs at United Group.
Collaboration with the Russian man
This episode from Dragan Šolak’s business world is but one in a sea of examples of his cunning game in which he destroys everything that stands in his way, imposes his own rules, and ensures the unstoppable amassing of his personal wealth. We explained several days ago how he manages to overcome the geopolitical obstacles using the example of establishing Russian ties. Although he vigorously pursues an anti-Russian course in the media sphere – above all though N1, which is a franchise of the American CNN – Slovenian media have revealed that Šolak has been developing his business behind the scenes, with a man influential in the Russian circles – Wolfram Kuoni. So, Dragan Šolak collaborates with the US, while at the same time he grasps the opportunity to establish very good business ties with the Russians in order to make profit.
The Kurir Team
