Two exhibitions are currently being put on to symbolically mark the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the EU. The first, titled Applied Nostalgia, was opened today in Belgrade, featuring photographs of the city of Valletta made by the diplomat Aleksandar Knezevic, whereas the other opens on 26 June in Malta and will feature photographs of Belgrade took by the photographer Marko Pac.
Inaugurating the exhibition, the Minister without portfolio in charge of European integration Jadranka Joksimovic described the Maltese presidency of the Council of the EU as highly favourable for Serbia and added that she hoped the Estonian presidency would bring Serbia as many advantages as the Maltese did.
She said that Serbia had achieved great success in the past week regarding the process of European integration as it opened two negotiating chapters, which brought the number of chapters opened during the Maltese presidency to four.
We hope the same criteria will be applied for any chapter in the future; Joksimovic said and added that Serbia had made its strategic choice.
Acting Director of the European Integration Office Ksenija Milenkovic said that the programme Applied Nostalgia has been running for the past ten years. It began in 2007, when the first photos were exchanged between Belgrade and Lisbon.
According to her, preparations are underway for the next show that will be organised together with Tallinn. The deal will be struck in autumn when an exhibition will be put on to show the similarities between Belgrade and Tallinn, the capital of the country that will be presiding over the EU.
Head of Serbia’s negotiating team Tanja Miscevic said that the programme was a way to show that Serbia was a part of Europe.
Acting Head of the EU Mission to Serbia Oskar Benedikt thanked SEIO for implementing the project which has been illustrating Serbia’s path to the EU for the past 10 years.
“This is a means of strengthening the cultural diplomacy,” Benedikt said, adding that this form of cooperation is becoming increasingly important as Serbia gets closer to the EU. He stressed that he hoped the moment Serbia joined the EU would come soon.
Aleksandar Knezevic, a Serbian diplomat, member of the Department of European integration at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who authored the exhibition, expressed his appreciation for the support he had received to carry the project out and added that he was pleasantly surprised by readiness of the Maltese to help him.
