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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Over 230,000 biometric passports, 350,000 new IDs issued

Belgrade, 30 January 2009

First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Ivica Dacic today stated that now that the new system for reading biometric documents has been installed at Nikola Tesla Airport, Serbia is ready to continue on its EU road.

He announced that these systems will be installed at all border crossings, adding that representatives from the European Commission will arrive in Serbia on Monday to determine how far Serbia has gone on its EU road.

The safety of documents and satisfactory control of state borders are one of the preconditions for Serbia’s entry to the Schengen ‘white list’, said Dacic ,adding that so far over 230,000 biometric passports and 350,000 new IDs have been issued.

He explained that the goal is to record every crossing of the border, which has not been the case so far, adding that this requires a single information system.

The Ministry’s goal is to create a single information system for issuing Serbian visas in order to speed up the process, Dacic said.

He explained that so far around 2,000 applications for passports have been submitted to Serbian embassies and consulates, adding that the process of issuing these documents is going well.

He recalled that on its path to the EU Serbia has two guidelines, the first being a political one, which implies applying for candidacy, while the second is visa liberalisation, which implies adoption of accompanying laws and the security of documents.

Dacic also noted he expects the talks on dual citizenship with Montenegro to be soon resumed.

Serbia is ready for the talks and we must find a solution in the interest of our citizens, said Dacic, adding that this is not a police matter, but a political issue.

Head of the Border Police Administration Nenad Banovic specified that the new system for reading documents at the Nikola Tesla Airport was installed on January 28, noting that over the past two days around 1,000 documents were read.