Category: Money and deals
Period: from 10 Feb 2017
Outcome: No one investigated (as of 17 Jan 2024)
In 2018, the Government of Serbia granted a 25-year concession for Belgrade's "Nikola Tesla" Airport to the French company Vinci Airports for a one-off fee of €501 million, even though the airport had been profitable before then. The contract has never been published: the Government and ministries withheld the concession act and the feasibility study, and the concessionaire's obligations were declared a business secret. Transparency Serbia is suing state bodies over the concealment of the contract, and the sources found contain no data that any prosecuting authority has investigated the concession.
In February 2017, the Government of Serbia and Nikola Tesla Airport launched an international tender for the concession of Belgrade airport. In January 2018, the Government chose the bid of the French company Vinci Airports (Vinci), and on 22 March 2018 the Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Zorana Mihajlović signed the 25-year concession contract on behalf of the Government.
In December 2018, Vinci paid a one-off fee of €501 million, of which €417 million went to the state and €84 million to minority shareholders, and took over management of the airport; the state remained the owner.
Critics pointed out that the airport was profitable before the concession, with a profit of about €28–30 million in 2017. President Aleksandar Vučić, as prime minister in late 2016, said that the state was "able" to invest in the airport on its own, and later presented the price of €501 million as a success exceeding expectations.
The number of passengers rose from 5.34 million in 2017 to 8.9 million in 2025.
The contract has never been published, even though Prime Minister Ana Brnabić and Finance Minister Siniša Mali announced its publication several times. The Government and ministries withheld the concession act and the feasibility study, and for that reason Transparency Serbia has sued the Government before the Administrative Court since 2017. According to Transparency Serbia, the court ruled that the Government must act on the request, and the Government then rejected the request by decision. The Ministry of Construction withheld the study, first citing security and then claiming it did not exist. In 2023, the Ministry of Finance replied that the concessionaire's contractual obligations were a business secret.
The sources found contain no data that any prosecuting authority, the State Audit Institution or the Anti-Corruption Agency has investigated the concession.
According to the official biography on the website of the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, Aleksandra Sofronijević, State Secretary since 2014 and minister in that ministry since 2025, was a member of the Government Working Group for the selection of the concessionaire. After the selection of Vinci, she became a member of the Working Group for monitoring the concession for Nikola Tesla Airport. The biography does not say when the groups worked or who their other members were.
According to Insajder, after the concession the Niš airport was transferred to the state, with a cap on the number of passengers in Niš until Belgrade reaches 12 million; Minister Zorana Mihajlović denied this.
KRIK and OCCRP reported that Vinci paid €47 million for land for the airport's expansion to a company of businessman Stanko Subotić, more than four times the Government's internal estimate.