PM Ana Brnabic met with representatives of CERN who are on a several-day visit to Serbia, the government announced.
According to this, they met "to determine whether Serbia meets the conditions for full membership in this organization."
Brnabic said that Serbia has worked hard over recent years on implementing economic reforms, fiscal stabilization and maintaining economic stability, adding that in the forthcoming period, the focus of the Serbian government will be on reforming education, investment in science and scientific projects, as well as on digitization and innovation in order to significantly improve the competitiveness of the Serbian economy.
According to her, Serbia is ready for full membership in CERN, which can be seen not only by the success of our faculties and institutes, which are still significant factor in this important organization, but also by the fact that in the next three years the Serbian government will have invested more than €50 millions in infrastructure and projects that encourage the use of technology and innovation.
In addition, the volume of cooperation between businesses in Serbia and CERN projects has been constantly increasing over the last three years.
Full membership will be crucial for further development of science and improvement of education in Serbia and will signal that Serbia is a country that decides on equal footing on the most important world issues in science, technology and innovation.
CERN's Director for International Relations Charlotte Warakaulle said that Serbia, as an associate member of this organization since 2012, has not used all the financial opportunities and tenders that CERN has been announcing, and that there is room for strengthening cooperation.
Source: B92 News