Government Holds Three of Six Serbian Lobbying Deals in DC

The opposition party Srbija centar put out a statement on August 1, 2026 asking who from Serbia is paying lobbyists in Washington and whose interests that money buys. The question rests on the FARA register, the public database of the US Department of Justice where, under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, every contract to represent a foreign interest on American soil has to be filed.

Six active contracts tied to Serbia currently sit in that database. Three belong to the Serbian government, one to the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, and one each to two private companies, Maneks of Novi Sad and Millennium Team of Belgrade. Radio Free Europe went through the filings and published its analysis on July 24, 2026, a week before the opposition wrapped the same numbers in a political question.

From the party’s statement:

Who is lobbying in Serbia’s name in Washington, and whose interests are being represented?

The first half of that question has a verifiable answer in the register. The second half is political, and the filings do not answer it.

The three contracts held by the state

The government has three active engagements on file:

• KARV Communications of New York, signed in 2023, about 60,000 dollars a month, for strategic communications and media relations
• Valcour LLC of Washington, signed in November 2024, 65,000 dollars a month or 780,000 a year, to promote Serbia as host of EXPO 2027, with an extension running to November 2026
• CRB Global LLC of Arlington, Virginia, since February 2026, 10,000 dollars a month, for strategic consulting

Together the three state contracts come to 135,000 dollars a month.

One firm works for both the state and a private company

CRB Global LLC appears twice in the register. Besides the government, it is also paid by Maneks, the Novi Sad company owned by Dragoljub Zbiljic, at roughly 90,000 dollars a month under a contract running to the end of 2026. That is nine times what the same firm charges the state for work described in the same terms.

Maneks posted revenue of about 45 million euros in 2025. It started two decades ago trading non-ferrous metals, later bought Energotehnika Juzna Backa and Elektromontaza of Kraljevo, and during 2025 the Hungarian power utility MVM took a majority stake, leaving Zbiljic with 40 percent.

The priciest deal is not a state deal

The largest monthly figure in the whole register belongs to no institution. Belgrade’s Millennium Team hired the Washington law firm Steptoe LLP in September 2024 for about 200,000 dollars a month. The filed purpose is work on relations with media, institutions and officials in the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Millennium Team is a contractor on the country’s biggest infrastructure jobs, among them Belgrade Waterfront and the preparation of EXPO 2027, and its revenue passed 21 million euros in 2025. Its lobbying deal is therefore worth some 2.4 million dollars a year, roughly a tenth of what the company earns.

The sixth contract is the oldest. Since 2019 the Serbian Chamber of Commerce has renewed its arrangement with the Washington firm Yorktown Solutions LLC every year, at between 400,000 and 840,000 dollars annually, for strategic advice on economic relations.

What is actually being lobbied for?

The topics the lobbying firms themselves declared to the Justice Department are specific rather than generic:

• economic ties between Serbia and the United States
• energy policy and sanctions on NIS, the Serbian oil company
• military and technical cooperation
• relations between the United States, Israel and Serbia
• EXPO 2027
• the Srebrenica resolution

The list covers foreign policy and commercial interest alike, and in two cases the bill is paid by companies that also build state projects.

Added up, the six declared contracts run to roughly 425,000 dollars a month, more than five million dollars a year. The state covers under a third of that, while the two private companies together pay 290,000 dollars a month, more than double the government’s share.

Two deadlines are close. The government’s Valcour contract expires in November 2026, and the Maneks contract with CRB Global at the end of the same year. Whether they are renewed or dropped will be the first real test of whether the question Srbija centar raised landed anywhere.