Slovenia, Serbia agree to recognise vaccination certificates

Ljubljana – Foreign Minister Anže Logar and his Serbian counterpart Nikola Selaković agreed on a mutual recognition of vaccination certificates as they held talks on Tuesday that focused on bilateral relations and Slovenia’s forthcoming presidency of the Council of the EU.

Selaković told the press he and Logar had talked about mutual recognition of vaccination certificates that would enable Slovenian citizens to travel to Serbia freely and vice versa.

As bilateral relations and Slovenia’s EU presidency topped the agenda, Logar noted that the Western Balkans was one of the priorities, with the planned informal EU-Western Balkans summit expected to open up a series of questions.

He expressed the hope that it would be possible to bring the positions of the Western Balkan countries regarding these issues closer together through dialogue, so that progress in the EU accession of the region was achieved during Slovenia’s stint.

Logar said that Selaković had presented him the reform process in Serbia and his government’s commitment to reform in all fields of relevance to EU accession negotiations. He expressed Slovenia’s support for Serbia on this path.

The ministers noted that Slovenia and Serbia were important business partners, who had doubled bilateral trade in the last ten years, to bring it above EUR 1.1 billion last year.

In the first three months of 2021, bilateral trade exceeded 300 million and if the trend continues, this will be a record year, Selaković said.

Logar and Selaković praised the countries’ relations at the highest political level and called for the tradition of joint government sessions to continue. The latter said that a sixth session was being organised.

The ministers also discussed open issues related to succession to former Yugoslavia, with Logar saying that 20 years after the signing of the succession agreement the time had come for some concrete results.

For this reason, he and Selaković went through specific issues related to cultural heritage, diplomatic representation offices and archives.

Logar said he was convinced that certain issues could be closed at future meetings, and his Serbian counterpart expressed Serbia’s interest to open a cultural and information centre in Ljubljana.

Selaković started his official visit to Slovenia in the municipality of Črnomelj, where he visited the location of a future museum collection on the history of the Uskoks in the Slovenian region of Bela Krajina.

The Serbian foreign minister was also received by President Borut Pahor, and on Wednesday he is scheduled to meet Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Janković.

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