THE FOLLOWING IS THE SPEECH OF THE SPEAKER OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA IN ITS ENTIRETY:

"Mr. President,
Members of the government,
Your Excellencies,
Honoured participants of the conference,

It is my pleasure to greet you once again to the National Assembly, which is hosting this important conference this year as well. I wish you a warm welcome and to our organisers, thank you for once again bringing together tremendously important speakers and participants. We are already getting used to the fact that we cannot say goodbye to the year without talking about what awaits us in the next at this conference before that.

Exactly one year ago, at the same gathering, we tried to look ahead to 2021, and above all to find answers to the problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. I could repeat what I said then about Serbia and its fight against the impact of the pandemic and make no mistake in the assessment for next year. Even then, a year ago, as well as now, Serbia had and still has a strong and the best possible response to the crisis that came with the COVID-19 virus, both in terms of the people’s healthcare and especially the maintenance of economic potentials of its economy and its population. This year, Serbia is even more convincing both in terms of high growth and attracting foreign investment, as well as in the general growth of the citizens' standards and continuation of large domestic investments, primarily into infrastructure.

I cannot say that the global crisis caused by the pandemic was an opportunity for Serbia, because, unfortunately, we have also had many dead and sick, despite the enormous and heroic efforts of everyone in our health system. But we can say that we have overcome this crisis as a country and as a system at the very top of the world and Europe in terms of its readiness and organisation. Few countries can say that they have provided their population, from the first moment possible, with sufficient quantities of free vaccines from all major world manufacturers. Few countries in the world were able to expand their health capacities in the midst of the pandemic and build new hospitals for the accommodation and care of patients, which will remain in the health system even after the pandemic. Few countries have been able to, at the very beginning of immunisation, open vaccine manufacturing capacities as Serbia did in the case of Sputnik V and will do with the Chinese Sinopharm next year.

Speaking of the economy, if in pandemic years, such as this and the previous one, we have managed not only to maintain, but to increase the rate of economic growth, to continue with record regional results in the arrival of foreign investments and to further encourage infrastructure construction, then it is clear what the coming 2022 could look like, when the pandemic will be on the wane. This is not just a matter of my and our optimism or good wishes, it is simply a realistic expectation based on the parameters from this and previous years and the budget recently adopted here in the Parliament. It is the budget of a stable and developing economy, which will in the next year invest a lot into the further growth of living standards, material status of pensioners and other social categories of the population, and will have enough resources for large public investments. That is a realistic image of Serbia today and the result of the many long years of joint efforts of the team headed by the President of the Republic and a policy that puts the interests of its people and the state first.

Next year, Serbia will be better than it was this year, when it was better than the previous one. In every sense - economic, political, international, in every sphere that is important for our citizens and for our state interests.

In exactly one month, we will have a referendum on constitutional changes. I expect its success and a positive outcome, with a great participation of our citizens. In that way, we will complete an extremely important job which has been underway for years and will improve the position and work of our judiciary. In addition to a wide range of our experts, non-governmental organizations, representatives of bar associations, universities, these changes have received the full support of the most important international institutions, primarily the Venice Commission. Therefore, I expect that we will start the coming 2022 not only with the opening of a new negotiating cluster with the European Union, but also with changes to the Constitution that have been one of the most important criteria for Serbia's progress towards full EU membership.

Of course, elections at several levels are expected in April and they will be conducted like before, according to the standards in force in all democratic countries, and we will apply all the agreements reached in the past months in the inter-party dialogue. From the future government, which will result from these elections, as well as from the president who will also be elected, I expect continuity of the current policy that changed the face of Serbia when it comes to huge infrastructure projects, numerous production plants and general growth of living standards of our citizens. This is also a policy that will continue to actively fight on the international stage for its most important national interests, and here I am thinking primarily of the issue of Kosovo-Metohija. In short, I expect full stability, which is a necessary precondition for development in every sense. This is not a prediction, it is a logical and realistic development based on the work of our institutions so far which will, I am certain, again be verified by a very strong support of our citizens in the coming elections.

I would like to welcome you once again to the National Assembly and I am sure that in the continuation of the conference we will receive detailed and concrete projections of our development in the next year and of course well-intentioned advice on how to make Serbia even more successful in the next year and to raise its place in the world to an even higher level.