Victory Day, Europe Day marked

Victory Day, Europe Day marked

Taking part in the ceremony will be representatives of the Ministry of Defense and the Serbian Army, an association of WWII veterans, the city of Belgrade as well as officials of the Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian and Azerbaijani embassies.

Serbian diplomatic representatives will lay wreaths at Serbian WWII military memorials and massacre sites in Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Great Britain, Greece, Egypt, Israel, Italy, Hungary, Macedonia, Germany, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, France, Croatia, Montenegro, the Czech Republic, Spain and other countries.

Victory Day, a national holiday, will be marked with traditional educational activities in primary and secondary schools, as well as by ceremonies and gatherings at military memorials and massacre sites in many Serbian municipalities and cities, the statement said. May 9, is also marked Europe Day to commemorate the day when the then French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman laid the foundations of a united Europe in 1950.

Sixty-four years ago today, just after the end of World War II, at a time when the mistrust between arch-enemies France and Germany was still running deep, Schuman published a document that would go down in history as the Schuman Declaration, proposing the establishment of a European federation as a means of preserving peace.

Schuman's plan is today considered the start of the European integration process, with Schuman himself regarded as the father of the European Union.

Alongside France and Germany, the initiative to create the European Coal and Steel Community was joined by Italy, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands.

A year later, on April 18, 1951, the Treaty of Paris was signed, giving rise to the first of the three European communities.

Subsequently, the European Economic Community was established by the Treaty of Rome in 1957, while the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 resulted in the emergence of the European Union.

In 1985, the European Council chose May 9 as Europe Day, which went on to be celebrated not only in the EU, but worldwide as well.

May 9 is also celebrated globally as the World War II Victory Day to commemorate the day of Nazi Germany's unconditional capitulation in 1945.

German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Soviet Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov and British Royal Air Force Marshal Arthur Tedder signed the act of capitulation on behalf of Germany, the Soviet Union and the Western allies, respectively.

The war, which lasted almost six years, involved 61 countries and around 110 million soldiers, killing between 55 and 60 million people.

According to figures released by a state commission of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, more than 1.7 million people were killed in Yugoslavia during the war, including over 300,000 combatants.