Irena Vujović (; born 3 April 1983) is a Serbian politician serving as minister of environmental protection since 2020. A member of the

Serbian Progressive Party The Serbian Progressive Party ( sr-cyrl, Српска напредна странка, Srpska napredna stranka, SNS) has been the ruling political party of Serbia since 2012. Founded by Tomislav Nikolić and Aleksandar Vučić in 2008 as a s ...

(SNS), she previously served as president of the

Savski Venac Savski Venac ( sr-cyr, Савски Венац, ) is a Subdivisions of Belgrade, municipality of the city of Belgrade. According to the 2011 census results, the municipality has a population of 39,122 inhabitants. It is one of the three municipal ...

Municipality from 2016 to 2020.

Early life and education

She was born in 1983 in

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...

. Her great-grandfather was Nikola Kovačević, a high ranking Montenegrin member of the

League of Communists of Yugoslavia The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, mk, Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na komunistite na Jugoslavija known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, sl, Komunistična partija Jugoslavije mk ...

and the brother of

Sava Kovačević Sava Kovačević ( sr-cyrl, Сава Ковачевић; 25 January 1905 – 13 June 1943) was a Yugoslav Partisan divisional commander during World War II, and one of the heroes of the communist Partisan movement. Early life Kovačević was ...

, a commander of the

Yugoslav Partisans The Yugoslav Partisans,Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Slovene: , or the National Liberation Army, sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilačka vojska (NOV), Народноослободилачка војска (НОВ); mk, Народноослобод ...

. She has bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from the Faculty of International Economics at the

Megatrend University Megatrend University ( sr, Универзитет Мегатренд, Univerzitet Megatrend) is a private university located in New Belgrade, the city of Belgrade, Serbia. It was founded in 1989 as the Megatrend Business School, which later became ...

and is currently attending doctoral studies at the same university. From 2005 to 2008, she was the coordinator of cooperation in the Department of International Cooperation at the Megatrend University. She was also a teaching associate in the subjects Modern Russian Economy and Economics of the Post-Soviet Space.

Politics

She joined the

after its founding in 2008. She was a member of the main board, and was elected a member of the Serbian Progressive Party presidency on 28 May 2016 at the party's election assembly. After the

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

and

2014 Serbian parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Serbia on 16 March 2014, with nineteen electoral lists competing for 250 members of the National Assembly. The election was called early, after tensions in the coalition led by the ruling Serbian Progressive P ...

s, she was elected a member of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...

. After the 2014 elections, the Mayor of Belgrade,

Siniša Mali Siniša Mali ( sr-Cyrl, Синиша Мали, ; born 25 August 1972) is a Serbian economist and politician serving as deputy prime minister of Serbia since 2022 and as minister of finance since 2018. A member of the Serbian Progressive Party ( ...

, appointed her as the Assistant Mayor in charge of social activities. In May 2014, she resigned from the National Assembly, because the Agency for the Fight against Corruption announced that she could not perform the function of the Assistant Mayor of Belgrade at the same time. She has been the head of the Gender Equality Council since 2015. She is the Deputy President of the Council for the Rights of Children and is the political representative of

Eurocities Eurocities is a network of large cities in Europe, established in 1986 by the mayors of six large cities: Barcelona, Birmingham, Frankfurt, Lyon, Milan and Rotterdam. Today, Eurocities members includes over 200 of Europe's major cities from 38 c ...

. After the local elections in 2016, she was elected president of the municipality of

and left the position of Assistant Mayor of Belgrade. In the

2018 Belgrade City Assembly election Eighteen or 18 may refer to: * 18 (number), the natural number following 17 and preceding 19 * one of the years 18 BC, AD 18, 1918, 2018 Film, television and entertainment * ''18'' (film), a 1993 Taiwanese experimental film based on the short s ...

s, she was on the list of candidates of the Serbian Progressive Party. She was mentioned as the favorite of the Progressives for the future mayor of Belgrade, next to

Goran Vesić Goran Vesić (; born 18 February 1969) is a Serbian politician serving as minister of construction, transport and infrastructure since 2022. A member of the Serbian Progressive Party, he has been serving as a member of the National Assembly of Se ...

References

External links

Irena Vujović
official Facebook page {{DEFAULTSORT:Vujovic, Irena 21st-century Serbian women politicians 21st-century Serbian politicians 1983 births Politicians from Belgrade Serbian Progressive Party politicians Serbian people of Montenegrin descent Living people Megatrend University alumni