The bidding to buy 51 percent of Telekom Srbija, a government owned telecommunications company, closes Monday at midnight.

The government has set the minimum price for the shares at EUR 1.4 billion.

Potential buyers were informed earlier that the government would sell 31 percent of its shares and another 20 owned by OTE, a Greek company, according to the Ministry of Finance.

Several Telekom worker unions protested the sale on Saturday and demanded that the employees and Serbian citizens be given free shares.

The unions sent an open letter to President Boris Tadic and Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic, where they listed 14 demands and stated their reasons for being against the sale.

At the same time, the Austrian Der Standard daily reported that Telekom Austria had not yet decided to make an offer, because it was still negotiating the terms of its participation in the tender.

The tender was opened October 20, 2010.

So far, the tender documentation has been bought by Deutsche Telekom, Telekom Austria, America Movil, Weather Investments, Turkcell, Vimpelkom and France Telecom, which decided not to bid.