The new general director of RTS, Manja Grcic, is registered in the APR as the director of the company “Tačno” within which Tanjug operates, she is also a co-owner of the private television K1, a PR company and some other channels. Does that discredit her to be at the head of the Public Service, is everything legal?
Can the director of the public service run a news agency that massively cooperates with state institutions, a private television station on which politicians make massive guest appearances, and a marketing firm that gets lucrative PR jobs from the regime?
Because he is exactly in such a position Manja Grcic, freshly chosen director of Radio and Television of Serbia.
Is she “guilty”?
Among media experts, there is no single answer as to whether Manja Grcic is legally in a conflict of interest.
NUNS lawyer Marija Babić told Vreme that the existing law of the Republic of Serbia definitely recognizes the violation in this case. She mentions the Law on Public Media Services, which states, in Article 25, that a person who cannot be a member of the RTS Board of Directors cannot be appointed as the General Director of RTS, and Article 17 explains this conflict of interest.
“The board of directors of RTS had to take this regulation into account when considering Manja Grcic’s application for director,” says Babić. “It is mentioned in the public that she could resign from the other positions in the media that she holds or exit from ownership, now that she has been elected as the general director of the Public Service. This still does not mean that she could have passed the competition, she should have left other jobs before she applied for it.”
Rade Veljanovski, a retired FPN professor, believes that there is no clear legal regulation.
“Although the law does not talk about it in detail, it is not necessary either – it is clear that there is a basis for thinking about a conflict of interest,” Veljanovski told “Vreme”.
Is there such a thing in the EU?
And he believes that it was the job of the Public Service Board, which reviewed the candidates.
“For people to come to similar positions in public services from commercial media, there are examples of this in the EU, here and there. However, that candidate had to immediately sever any connection with the previous workplace, get out of ownership before starting to work in a new position,” he says.
From the UNS, the opinion was also heard that the REM Council should be involved in this issue – only if it existed.
“Unfortunately, the election of the RTS director is very questionable at a time when we don’t have the REM Council, which is the only competent one to clarify the illogicalities that accompany this process and potential irregularities. From whom can we now ask for an interpretation as to whether some of the candidates are in a conflict of interest, such as Manja Grcic,” Olivera Milosevic, vice president of UNS, told the media before the election was over.
Veljanovski adds that the Council of REM has no responsibility to determine the conflict of interest during the competition for the election of the director of RTS, because their work ends when they elect the Board of Directors.
“But the Council has the authority to monitor everything that happens in the media. If there is a conflict of interest in the program offer of the new director, to use the products, information of her other media, to promote it in a way that distorts competition, then it would have to intervene. In the current circumstances, we will have to wait for that,” says the FPN professor.
A handful of executive chairs
Manja Grcic has many director positions.
She is currently the general director of the Tanjug news agency and co-owner of K1 television. This is the business he runs with Željko and Jovana Joksimović, with whom he is also godmother.
Grčić and Joksimović are also the owners of Minacord Media, which six years ago, with the approval of the Government of Serbia, leased Tanjug for 10 years for 628.000 euros. Joksimović and his partner Manja Grčić bought the rights to the Tanjug agency with the help of a loan guaranteed by Telekom in the contract they signed, the media write. Because the company “Minacord Media” received a loan of 2,4 million euros from a commercial bank based on its business engagement with Telekom. Thus, they first received a loan worth 1,5 million euros in November 2019, and a few months later, in March 2020, another 900 thousand euros, according to official pledge agreements obtained by Raskrikanje.
She has another director’s chair in the marketing agency “Majo Public”, which is owned by her and Jovana Joksimović, and provides services to various state-owned companies – from Srbijavoz to Telekom. During 2024, that company earned more than half a million euros. Their clients include Dipos, the Automobile Association of Serbia, AMS Insurance, eAdministration, the Museum of Natural History…
Source: Vreme
