Duško Lopandić ( sr-Cyrl, Душко Лопандић; born 1957) is a Serbian politician, university professor, writer and former diplomat. He has been a vice-president of the

centrist Centrism is a political outlook or position involving acceptance or support of a balance of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy while opposing political changes that would result in a significant shift of society strongly to the l ...

Serbia Centre Serbia Centre ( sr-cyrl, Србија центар, Srbija centar, abbr. SRCE) is a List of political parties in Serbia, political party in Serbia. It is led by Zdravko Ponoš, former Chief of the Serbian General Staff, chief of the General Staf ...

(SRCE) since 2022.

Early life and education

Lopandić was born in 1957. He graduated from the

Faculty of Law A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

at the University of Belgrade and obtained his master's degree and PhD at the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University in the field of European law.

Diplomatic career

Lopandić started working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia in 1986. From 1988 to 1994, he worked in the Yugoslav mission in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

. Following the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević, Lopandić was the director of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

directorate in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of

FR Yugoslavia Serbia and Montenegro ( sr, Cрбија и Црна Гора, translit=Srbija i Crna Gora) was a country in Southeast Europe located in the Balkans that existed from 1992 to 2006, following the breakup A relationship breakup, breakup, or ...

from 2001 to 2004. From 2004 to 2007, he was the assistant to the minister of international economic relations for multilateral affairs. From 2007 to 2011, Lopandić was the ambassador of Serbia to

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

and

Cape Verde , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...

, From 2011 to 2013, he served as the assistant to the

minister of foreign affairs A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between cou ...

for the European Union and regional cooperation. He was the ambassador of Serbia to the European Union from 2013 until 2016 when he was dismissed by foreign minister Ivica Dačić for an inadequate reaction to the organization of the Croatian exhibition about the controversial Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac in the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...

. President

Tomislav Nikolić Tomislav Nikolić ( sr-Cyrl, Томислав Николић, ; born 15 February 1952) is a Serbian retired politician who served as the president of Serbia from 2012 to 2017. A former member of the far-right Serbian Radical Party (SRS), he d ...

stated that Lopandić was wrong since he did not inform the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the exhibition. Until his retirement in 2022, he was the head of the department for analysis and foreign policy planning" in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Academic career

Lopandić collaborated with numerous research institutes and published over 100 scientific works regarding EU, history of diplomacy, regional cooperation and international relations. He has been writing history books and school textbooks. Lopandić is a professor at the Faculty of Justice and Economics in Novi Sad for the subjects Public International Law and European Law.

Political career

In July 2022, Lopandić joined the newly founded

political organization

(SRCE) of Zdravko Ponoš and was later elected its vice-president.

Other activities

Lopandić is a long-time activist of the European Movement in Serbia, in which he was elected to the position of vice president. In 2003, he received the award of the European Movement in Serbia for ''Contribution of the Year to Europe''.

Selected works

* ''La communauté économique européenne et la Yougoslavie : commerce et cooperation dans les accords entre la communauté économique européenne et la Yougoslavie'' * ''Letopis velikih župana'' * ''Purpur imperije'' * ''Likovi i priče iz srpskog srednjeg veka'' * ''Dinastije koje su vladale Evropom'' * ''Poslužili svome dragom otečestvu - iz diplomatske istorije Srbije 1914-1918'' * ''Regionalne inicijative u Jugoistočnoj Evropi'' * ''Reči su senke dela'' * ''Evropske integracije između nacije i globalizma'' * ''Vreme sjaja, vreme tame: diplomate u vrtlogu istorije od XIII veka do 1941. godine'' * ''Bitke za Balkan''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lopandić, Duško 1957 births Living people Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University alumni Serbia Centre politicians Serbian diplomats University of Belgrade Faculty of Law alumni