Why is an agreement allowing migration of our medical workers to Germany still in force?

Labor Minister Zoran Djordjevic said that Serbia wants to keep its citizens in the country and that the fact National Employment Service (NSZ) is posting a competition for employment of our medical workers in Germany does not mean that the government supports their departure - but rather that Serbia and Germany signed an agreement in 2013, which must be respected.

Djordjevic explained that when he came to the helm of that ministry, his wish was to terminate the agreement between the NSZ and the German Employment Agency, which allows between 100 and 120 of our medical workers to be employed in German health care institutions each year - but given that the agreement that was signed at the highest level and that its termination would affect relations between the two countries, it remained in force.

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"That is something I had to swallow... I am grateful to the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, for raising the issue of economic migration and for obtaining the approval of the Serbian government to form a coordination body for preventing labor departure and do everything against this agreement," said Djordjevic, while answering journalists' questions in Belgrade.

According to him, he expects the coordination body's strategy to be finalized at the end of January and soon be proposed to the government for adoption.

He also thanked Minister of Health Zlatibor Lonca, for the fact that in the previous two years all young people who graduated from medical faculties or high schools got a job.

"As long as I'm here, there will certainly be no more such agreements. I believe I have the support of President Vucic in this. We have to work to keep people, not sign agreements that make it easy for them to leave," underlined Djordjevic.

NZS Director Zoran Martinovic said that the agreement with the German Employment Agency, which defines an organized form of sending workers from Serbia to Germany, was signed in 2013 and concerns between 100 and 120 people a year.

He says that the number that leaves in an organized manner should not concern us, but rather the number that leaves unorganized and for which there is no data.

"Through this agreement we annually directly employ between 100 and 120 people. These employees have no problems and have the same rights guaranteed to German citizens," Martinovic said.

He says the state cannot completely prevent migration but can control it, and that the agreement with Germany is, he claims, precisely one form of control.

(Telegraf Biznis/Tanjug)