The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia Nikola Selaković participated at the 130th Session of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, held via video-link on 4th November 2020.

In his statement, Minister Selaković said that the Republic of Serbia was committed to continuous co-operation with the European Court of Human Rights and had managed to successfully execute the most complex judgments of the Court. The Minister emphasized that, despite the many challenges and problems it had produced, the COVID-19 pandemic had once again shown the importance of multilateralism and international co-operation. He underlined that the crisis should not lead to marginalisation of existing long-standing problems such as racism, xenophobia, intolerance, hate speech, lacking social cohesion, poverty, various manifestations of discrimination and inequality, etc.

Minister Selaković expressed the support to the Istanbul Convention and declared that Serbia would continue to resolutely support combating violence against women and fighting domestic violence. He informed that with the election of the new Government of the Republic of Serbia, headed by Ms Ana Brnabić, in which 10 out of 23 ministries were headed by women, Serbia had justified its traditional ranking among countries with balanced statistics in terms of equality parameters. The Minister underlined that Serbia had consistently demonstrated its commitment to the principles and values of the Council of Europe and that the new Ministry for Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue is formed.

The Minister reminded that Serbia supported every engagement of the Council of Europe in Kosovo and Metohija aimed at promoting standards in the fields of human rights, rule of law and democracy, carried out pursuant to the status-neutral policy of the Council of Europe and co-operation with Provisional Institutions of Self-Government in Pristina in their “functional capacity” in line with the United Nations’ Security Council Resolution 1244, as the framework for all activity of the international presence in the Province.

Greece transferred the six month presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the CoE to Germany.