Monuments institute chief confirms government pressure

Dubravka Djukanovic submitted her resignation to Culture Minister Nikola Selakovic in which she wrote that Finance Minister Sinisa Mali and other government officials to lift the protected status or resign by June 3. She specified that Mali was in the company of officials from his and the Ministry of Culture.

According to Djukanovic, as head of the Institute she could not agree to the demolition of the General Staff complex which enjoys protected status. “The buildings was given protected status in 1984 and declared a monument of culture in 2005 and it was made part of a cultural-historic complex in central Belgrade in 2020 which was the clear and unequivocal stand of the institute in terms of protecting it,” she wrote in her resignation.