Statement of the Ministry on the occasion of one year since the formation of the Government of Serbia

In the past year, the Ministry has acted on achieving three priority goals: defending state interests and implementing foreign policy priorities, engaging in support of increasing exports and promoting Serbia as an investment destination, continuing to modernize the work of the Ministry and the diplomatic service.

Following the economic expansion of Serbia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs established for the first time the Sector for Economic Diplomacy, which will be the promoter of exports and Serbia as the most attractive investment destination in this part of the world.

A large number of meetings and bilateral visits of Minister Nikola Selaković in the first year of his mandate also testify to the increased activity of Serbian diplomacy. During that period, Minister Selaković had 354 meetings with foreign officials: among others with 16 presidents, 10 prime ministers and 110 meetings with ministers of foreign affairs. In the same period, he had 84 meetings on the sidelines of multilateral gatherings and 70 meetings with foreign ambassadors in Belgrade, as well as meetings with a large number of parliamentarians, businessmen and representatives of cultural and religious institutions.

Add to that 32 bilateral visits to foreign countries and 18 visits by foreign officials hosted by Minister Selaković, 38 signed interstate agreements, dozens of video meetings and telephone conversations with foreign officials, and it is clear that Serbian diplomacy has had its hands full in the past year, regardless of the limiting circumstances in the conditions of the corona virus pandemic.

Minister Selaković has had multiple meetings with many foreign ministers in the past year, he talked with the Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó 5 times, with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov 4 times, with Italian Minister Luigi di Maio and Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar 3 times, and he had 2 meetings with the ministers of foreign affairs of China, Wang Yi and Germany, Heiko Maas. Selaković also had the opportunity to meet twice with the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres.

The crown of this year's diplomatic activities of Serbia was the organization of a commemorative gathering on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the first conference of the Non-Aligned Movement, which was attended by 120 delegations, and Minister Selaković, on that occasion, had as many as 52 activities in four days with the heads of the visiting delegations on the sidelines of the event.

Guided by the principles of humanity and solidarity, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in coordination with other institutions of the Republic of Serbia, actively participated in the donation of medical equipment and about a million doses of vaccines against Covid-19 to many countries in the region and Europe, but also on other continents, primarily Africa. In addition, Serbia has allocated about 300 tons of food products to help African countries.

Last year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs began to open its doors to young people, and within the strategy of personnel renewal and rejuvenation of Serbian diplomacy, protocols on cooperation were signed with 15 state faculties from six universities, as well as a protocol on cooperation with the Organization of Serbian Students Abroad. From next year, more than 150 young people will support the work of the MFA and perform professional internships in the country and DCMs of Serbia abroad.

By introducing a new digital platform for consular services and new services for citizens, the Ministry has caught up with modern efforts to enable the beneficiaries of this type of services to meet their administrative needs in as few steps as possible and with as little waiting as possible.

A big step forward has been made in terms of legislation, as two very important draft laws have entered the procedure – on foreign affairs and on the participation of civilians in peacekeeping missions outside Serbia.

The first steps have been taken in the direction of expanding the diplomatic-consular network, in order for Serbia to return to the parts of the world that it left in the recent past in terms of foreign policy and economy.

Cooperation with the diaspora and Serbs in the region has been raised to a much higher level. With the help of competitions and co-financing of about 200 projects, work is being carried out on preserving and strengthening ties with the home country. 23 new classes of supplementary schools have been opened abroad, and 700 more children are learning Serbian this year, which is an increase of 20% compared to last year. For the first time, the Mother Language Day and the Serbian Unity, Freedom and the National Flag Day were marked.

Great strides in the past period have been made in the field of public diplomacy. A new website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was launched, and in addition to the redesigned website, a new visual identity of the ministry was introduced. The Ministry also started operating in the field of digital diplomacy, and the diplomatic-consular network had a kind of offensive in foreign media with the aim of improving Serbia's reputation and bringing Serbian political and economic initiatives closer to foreign audiences.

The Ministry, together with the Ministry of Culture and Information and other competent institutions, was engaged in returning the objects of Serbian cultural and material heritage to the homeland.