A press conference with H.E. Ivo Josipovic, President of Croatia and H.E. Boris Tadic, President of Serbia.
Bio
Ivo Josipovic
Ivo Josipovic has been president of Croatia since January 10, 2010. In 2003, he became a member of the Croatian Parliament with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and later served as vice president of the SDP Representatives' Group. From 2004-2009, he served on the committees of Judiciary; Constitution, Regulations, and Political Systems; and Conflict of Interest. President Josipovic received his law degree from the Faculty of Law at the University of Zagreb. From 2001-2003, he served as an expert for the Council of Europe. In 1995, he was an observer of the Croatian government at the International Criminal Tribunal. From 1991-2009, he served as director of the Music Biennale Zagreb, an international festival of contemporary music. President Josipovic holds a master’s degree in criminal law and a Ph.D. in criminal sciences. He also holds a degree from the Music Academy of Zagreb, where he was a lecturer. President Josipovic founded the Croatian Law Center, and later became its president.
Boris Tadic
Boris Tadic has been the president of Serbia since February 15, 2008. President Tadic had previously held numerous political and governmental posts, including that of minister of telecommunications in the months following the October 5th democratic revolution that overthrew the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. In addition, after serving two terms as the Deputy Leader of the Democratic Party, President Tadic was elected the Leader of the Democratic Party on February 22, 2004, succeeding the assassinated Prime Minister of Serbia, Dr. Zoran Dindic. He also worked as a teacher of psychology and as a military clinical psychologist. Until 2003, he was a lecturer of political advertising at the Faculty of Drama at the University of Belgrade. In addition, in 1997, he founded and directed, until 2002, the Centre for the Development of Democracy and Political Skills. President Tadic received the "European Prize for Political Culture" by the Swiss Foundation Hans Ringier in 2007, the prestigious annual German award Quadriga in 2008, and the Steiger Award in 2010. He was also conferred an honorary doctorate at the Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University in Bucharest in 2009.
Peninsula, southeastern Europe. Located between the Adriatic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Aegean and Black seas, it contains many countries, including Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria. From 168 BC to AD 107, part of the area was incorporated into Roman provinces, including Epirus, Moesia, Pannonia, Thrace, and Dacia. It was subsequently settled by Slavic invaders, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and Slavonized Bulgars, the last of whom were pushed into the Balkan region in the 6th century. It was gradually organized into kingdoms, many of which were overrun by the Ottoman Empire in the 14th–15th century. The factional strife that occurred there from the early 20th century, provoking the continual breakups and regroupings of different states, introduced the word balkanize into English.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.European country located in the west-central Balkans. The autonomous province of Vojvodina is within its borders. Area: 29,922 sq mi (77,498 sq km). Population (2009): 7,320,000. The capital is Belgrade. Serbia is mountainous, with forests in the central area and low-lying plains in the north. Farming and mining remain important in Serbia, but most workers are employed in manufacturing, which is concentrated in northern industrial zones. The country is a republic with a unicameral legislature; the head of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister. Serbs settled the region in the 6th and 7th centuries. In the 9th century the Serbs, nominally under Byzantine suzerainty, converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The Ottoman Empire triumphed at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389; after a long period of resistance, Serbia became part of the empire in 1459. After the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29, Serbia became an autonomous principality under Ottoman suzerainty and Russian protection. It became completely independent of the Ottoman Empire in 1878. After World War I Serbia became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929. In 1946 Serbia became one of the six federated republics of Yugoslavia. As the Yugoslav economy faltered in the 1980s, the country began to break apart. After an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Slovenia's secession in 1991, Serbian elements of the Yugoslav armed forces began assisting Bosnian Serbs in sweeping Bosniacs (Bosnian Muslims) and Croats from eastern and northern Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, after Yugoslavia's breakup, Serbia joined with Montenegro to form a new Yugoslav federation. The area remained in turmoil (seeBosnian conflict). The signing of the Dayton peace accords in 1995 ultimately brought little relief. Slobodan Miloševic retained power in Serbia through the end of the century, and the push for more autonomy by Albanian Kosovars provoked another round of fighting in 1998–99 (seeKosovo conflict). As the violence escalated, NATO responded with a bombing campaign, which led to a peace accord in June 1999. A change in the Yugoslav government late in 2000 brought reinstatement in the UN, and in 2003, though the Montenegrin government threatened to declare independence, the governments of the two constituent states remained united under the name Serbia and Montenegro. By 2006, however, the union was disbanded, and the two were recognized as independent countries. In 2008 Kosovo formally seceded, but Serbia refused to recognize it as an independent country.
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