Serbia at Summit for Democracy, Biden hosts virtual event: Vucic gets 5, Osmani 3 minutes to speak

Photo: Tanjug/AP

US President Joseph Biden will today host the virtual Summit for Democracy, to which he invited more than 100 countries, and one of the participants will be President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic.

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The main topics of the two-day summit will be strengthening democracies, defending against authoritarianism, solving the problem of corruption and promoting human rights, Voice of America reported. The summit is part of Biden's pre-election promise to bolster democracies around the world at a time when autocratic governments are strengthening, the article adds.

The Biden administration says leaders will be encouraged to announce certain actions and commit to significant internal reforms.

"If you look at the agenda, it's really abstract," said Stacy Goddard, a professor of political science at Wellesley College.

She added that she would like to see a more practical approach. The summit will be attended by 111 world leaders.

Osmani has three minutes, Vucic five

A three-minute address is planned for the representative from Pristina, and five minutes for the representative of Serbia. According to the agenda presented by the State Department, states are divided according to the type of panel. The southern Serbian province is in the first panel lasting 15 minutes, along with Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro and the Netherlands, and Serbia is in a panel with three other countries, each given a time slot of five minutes. Serbia will be represented by President Aleksandar Vucic.

As announced, the president of the Provisional Institutions in Pristina, Vjosa Osmani, will present the main points of so-called Kosovo's policy in the field of the rule of law, international cooperation in the fight against autocracy, strengthening the role of women in society and establishing mechanisms to ensure implementation of obligations.

Neither Belgrade nor Pristina were initially invited to participate, but invitations came later. Voice of America writes that the list of participants raised the question why some countries have been included while others have not. Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has a score of 53 on the Freedom House index, has not been invited, while so-called Kosovo, which has a score of 54, has, as have nine Balkan countries. Pakistan, which has a score of 37, is on the list, but Sri Lanka with a score of 56 is not.

(Telegraf.rs)