15 October 2017 National Assembly Speaker Maja Gojkovic at the session of the Inter-Parliamentary Union

15 October 2017 National Assembly Speaker Maja Gojkovic at the session of the Inter-Parliamentary Union

Sunday, 15 October 2017

Gojkovic at Inter-Parliamentary Union Session

At the 137th Inter-Parliamentary Union session in Saint Petersburg today, the Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia and Head of the standing delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union Maja Gojkovic stressed that Serbia is working very hard to promote cultural and ethnic differences and by creating and implementing the legal framework necessary for the protection of the rights and freedoms of national minorities and religious communities.


“Our country is home to a great many people of different religions, languages and cultures, and is in that sense the riches one in Europe”, said Gojkovic speaking at the general debate on promoting the values of cultural pluralism and peace through interfaith and inter-ethnic accord.

The National Assembly Speaker said that each religion and ethnic community has its idiosyncrasies that need to be respected, which can only be done through dialogue.

“We, the representatives of the citizens, have to foster that dialogue and help it expand to include more people and social groups”, said Gojkovic reminding the attending that, by passing key laws such as the Law on the Protection of the Freedoms and Rights of National Minorities, Law on National Councils of National Minorities, Anti-Discrimination Law, as well as laws in the sphere of education and media in national minority languages, Serbia has secured the application of the highest standards of protection of rights and freedoms and is an excellent example at the regional, European and even global level.

In that sense, Gojkovic said that the national minorities in Serbia have both individual and collective rights, elect their representatives into 21 national minority councils to exercise their rights to self-government in culture, education and information and the official use of language and script, adding that the national minorities can officially use 11 languages to exercise their rights, while the AP Vojvodina Parliament has six languages in official use.

The IPU session is attended by over 700 parliamentarians, including 85 heads of parliament and 50 of their deputies from all over the world.



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thursday, 25 april
  • 12.00 - closing ceremony of the International Girls in ICT Day (National Assembly House, 13 Nikola Pasic Square)

  • 14.00 - the National Assembly Speaker meets with Baroness Catherine Ashton (National Assembly House, 13 Nikola Pasic Square)

  • 15.30 - the National Assembly Speaker meets with the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates in the Republic of Serbia (National Assembly House, 13 Nikola Pasic Square, diplomatic salon of Prince Pavle)

Full event calendar