DDD Foundation: Dialogue for Democracy and Development

Biography

Boris Tadić is President of the Social Democratic Party and served as President of Serbia from 2004 to 2012. His public career spans more than three decades of Serbian and regional politics, from the democratic opposition movements of the 1990s through senior ministerial office to two terms as head of state. He founded his current party in 2014, initially under the name New Democratic Party, and has led it since its establishment.

Boris Tadić was elected President of Serbia in June 2004 and re-elected in February 2008. During his presidency he submitted Serbia's application for membership of the European Union, and the country received EU candidate status in 2012; Serbia also joined NATO's Partnership for Peace programme, and Serbian citizens gained visa-free travel to the Schengen area. He pursued regional reconciliation, offering apologies in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Croatia for crimes committed in the name of the Serbian people, and attended the tenth-anniversary commemoration of the Srebrenica massacre in 2005.

Tadić joined the Democratic Party in 1990 and was elected to the National Assembly following the 1993 election, going on to lead the party from 2004 to 2012. After the democratic changes of 2000 he served as Minister of Telecommunications of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 2000 to 2003, and subsequently as Minister of Defence of Serbia and Montenegro from 2003 to 2004, where he initiated reforms to bring the armed forces towards NATO standards. Before entering politics he worked as a military clinical psychologist, a journalist and a teacher, and later lectured at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade.

Tadić holds a degree in psychology from the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Belgrade and received an honorary doctorate from Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University in 2009. His recognitions include the Quadriga Award in 2008 and the Golden Keys of the City of Madrid in 2009. He is a member of Club de Madrid, the organisation of former democratic heads of state and government, and participates in the European Leadership Network.