Photo: FoNetEPS employee and general secretary of the Social Democratic Party, Dragoslav Ljubičić, received a new warning before his dismissal, officially due to postings on the X network, and unofficially, as he claims, after a conversation with "Vreme" about the import of coal and the business of EPS
Dragoslav Ljubičić, employee of EPS and general secretary of the Social Democratic Party (SDS), after a statement to "Vreme" about how much EPS imports coal for he received another warning before dismissal.
First, because of his support for the students, as he says, he was illegally fired, so the court returned him to work in a new, lower position at the Nikola Tesla Thermal Power Plant with a temporary measure, which was a claim. This temporary measure has also been declared illegal in the meantime, and now he has received a warning before being fired again - officially because of his posts on the X social network.
Unofficially, however, because he spoke about the import of coal to Serbia for "Vreme", says Ljubičić.
Two in one: In four years, Serbia imported coal worth one billion euros
"I'm pretty sure that this is happening because of what the 'Vremena' portal wrote. I publish all kinds of things on X, so nothing happens because of that. Now a media outlet published an article about coal imports and talked to me, and this happened," Ljubičić told "Vreme" on the day he received the warning before his dismissal.
The warning mentions posts on the X social network, with which, according to the management, he violated work discipline.
Ljubičić wonders if his rights to freedom of speech and trade union activity were also violated in this way.
To make the absurdity complete, the worst, and the best, among the ćaci tried their best.
The Lukić-Bezmarević team was in the same places and caused the biggest power collapse in EPS, 11.12.2021.
That collapse caused cumulative damage to EPS and citizens (owners) of €1,6 billion. https://t.co/LGKqr9MdvE— Dragoslav Ljubičić (@belcho1311) May 11, 2026
At the beginning of May, Dragoslav Ljubičić published data on Iks about how much coal Serbia imports from Indonesia and how it will be imported in the future.
As he explained to "Vreme" at the time, it could soon be possible to transport imported coal to TENT A, and progressive businessmen could be involved in the whole story.
Coal, he said, will be transported from the unloading site to the mixing site for TENT A in the future by trucks, at a price of 500 euros per transport.
"During the training of the workers, it is said that this will be done. It is interesting that the local financiers of SNS have already bought the trucks, they were told what they should be. They say that it costs 500 euros per truck to transport it, which is maybe two kilometers from the place of unloading. All these costs are included in the price of coal, and therefore the production price of electricity also increases. This is what the TENT workers are talking about among themselves," said Ljubičić for "Vreme".
Coal from Indonesia, which is the largest exporter of this energy product to Serbia, arrives via two ports - Romanian Constanta and Montenegrin Bar. Transport through the Montenegrin port began in the autumn of last year.
When it arrives at the port, the coal is transported further by rail to Vreoc, and the public procurement procedure for this service is underway. From there, the coal is further transported to TENT B, by railway of the thermal power plant.
"Vreme" previously contacted the EPS in connection with Ljubičić's claims, but the answers did not arrive.
Last year, Serbia imported about three million tons of coal, coke and briquettes and spent about 422 million dollars for that. Most of these energy sources came from Indonesia, about 1,2 million tons. About 933 thousand tons of coal were imported from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and about 148 thousand tons from Montenegro. Imported coal is mixed with domestic coal and "feeds" thermal power plants.
Coal imports began to rise sharply after the disaster at TENT in 2021, which was caused, among other things, by the poor quality of fuel (lignite), stopped its work and forced Serbia to urgently import expensive electricity.
The final result was - around one billion euros in damage to the Republic of Serbia, and one year later EPS stated a total of almost 800 million euros in additional costs for importing electricity.
In order to reduce the cost of importing electricity, EPS turned to importing coal.
"JP EPS has taken certain steps in order to reduce the problems of insufficient quantity and quality of its own coal, which result in reduced production and large and expensive imports of electricity. Those steps are primarily related to coal imports", it is written in the annual report of EPS from 2022.
The idea was to import a sufficient amount of coal that would be mixed with coal from Kolubara and enable greater production of electricity in thermal power plants.
In four years, from the beginning of 2022 to the end of 2025, the cost of importing coal reached one billion euros, according to the data of the Republic Institute of Statistics.
During the previous four-year period, from 2018 to 2021, the total price of coal imports was only about 61 million euros.
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