Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear friends,

It is my pleasure, as well as a great honour, to welcome you today to this small corner of our homeland that the Embassy of the Republic of Serbia is, where we have gathered at a reception to commemorate the National Day and the Day of the Serbian Armed Forces – Candlemas Day (Sretenje).

Today we are celebrating the most important date in the modern Serbian history - the Candlemas Day is not just a major Christian feast for Serbs commemorating the purification of the Virgin Mary and the presentation of the infant Jesus at the Temple: this is the day which determined our fate on several occasions throughout our history – we commemorate the beginning of the uprising that led to the rebirth of the Serbian statehood and of our armed forces, as well as to the enactment of our first constitution.

On the 15th of February 1804 the Serbs rose to arms against the Ottoman rule to put an end to almost four centuries of occupation. As if by fate, it was three decades later, on Sretenje in 1835, that the first Serbian constitution was enacted. Its contents, inspired by the ideas of the French Revolution, and especially by the Belgian Constitution of 1831, had been deemed too liberal for the concert of European powers established at the Vienna Congress in 1815 and therefore "The Candlemas Day Constitution" was quickly put aside and replaced in 1838 by another one – definitely less provocative.

More than two centuries have passed since Serbia's resurrection as a modern European state. The diplomatic ties between Serbia and the United Kingdom date back to 1837 when the first British consul Sir George Lloyd Hodges arrived in Kragujevac, then capital of the Principality of Serbia, on 1st of June 1837. Now, 176 years later, I have the honour of serving as Ambassador in a country with which we shared efforts to make the world a better place in both world wars in the last century. It has certainly been my greatest professional satisfaction lately to witness the constant development of relations, as the United Kingdom continues to support Serbia’s efforts to fulfil its strategic aim of becoming a member of the European Union. It is my fifth speech on the occasion of commemorating our National Day in this Embassy and while preparing today’s brief address I compared my previous notes and realised that the progress on the path towards the EU was gradual but steady. I cannot resist the wish to quote British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury: „There is nothing dramatic in the success of a diplomatist. His victories are made up of a series of microscopic advantages.“ Namely, during my tour of duty Serbia’s first benchmark was visa liberalisation, then came the ratification of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement and the next year the status of an EU candidate country. The Council’s decision in December 2012 to authorise the Commission to assess whether the dialogue between Belgrade and Priština has brought both parties to a stage which may be defined as a point of no return in terms of normalisation of their relations and then, provided the assessment is positive, to decide by the end of the Irish presidency on the date of the commencement of the accession negotiations, provides encouragement for the leaders engaged in a process which requires determination, courage and vision. I hope that in the next year’s speech my successor will be able to make a comment or two on how the talks on Chapter 23 and 24 are progressing.

Well, it was another British Prime Minister David Lloyd George who once said that “diplomats were invented simply to waste time.” Bearing in mind an extensive presence of the prominent members of our profession on this occasion today, I am sure that you would allow me to: (a) humbly disagree with the illustrious statesman; and (b) add a few sincere sentences dedicated to our friends in this world.

We are fully aware that our better future is also based on the ties we nurture with our neighbours and Serbia prides herself in enhancing regional processes. I must say that the regional cooperation is not only flourishing at the state level. Besides having strong links with the regional embassies in London, I am happy to admit that I am counting some of the Ambassadors from the region as my close personal friends.

The better future requires a range of economic, political and legal reforms, which is why we see the EU not only as a strategic aim, but also as our strategic partner in implementing those reforms and in finding the ways in which the state could secure a better life for all its citizens. And the citizens do endorse such reforms, even if they may from time to time disapprove of a specific request directed to their country by a member state.
I would like to use this opportunity to underline how much the democratic Serbia appreciates the support it enjoys by friendly nations on the path to its Euro-integration. One of the biggest privileges I have, as Serbia's Ambassador to the UK, is to cooperate with the people sincerely committed to the EU enlargement – the Government, Her Majesty’s Opposition, civil servants, academics, business circles, local communities, even journalists. As in the previous year, the only real threat to our cooperation and quality of the diplomatic relations these days lies in the hands of Novak Djoković, with whom, as promised last year, I had a word before his matches with Andy Murray in Wimbledon and the US Open during the summer of 2012. The outcome brought some temporary relaxation, but the 2013 Australia Open makes my diplomatic task even more challenging.

In the end, let me thank all of you once again for being our guests today. These words of gratitude particularly refer to Mrs Silva McQueen, who outstandingly sang Serbia’s and the United Kingdom’s national anthems. 
Finally, in order not to fail our reputation as a hospitable nation, I take this opportunity to warn you that there are delicacies awaiting you downstairs.