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Quick Facts
Biography
Snežana Samardžić-Marković ([sněʒana sǎmardʒitɕ mǎːrkoʋitɕ]) (Serbian Cyrillic: Снежана Самарџић-Марковић, born 10 March 1966) is a Serbian politician. She served as the Minister of Youth and Sports from 2007 to 2012. She has also been the Council of Europe's Director General for democracy since April 2012.
Biography
Samardžić-Marković graduated from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology and is working on her MA thesis at the Faculty of Drama Arts. In the period 2005–2007 she was Assistant Minister of Defence and was in charge of strategic planning, international military cooperation and the Verification Centre, as well as Co-President of the Serbia-NATO Defence Reform Group. From 2001 to 2005, she worked in the bilateral department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Deputy Director for Neighbouring Countries, Deputy Head of Mission and Adviser at the Serbia and Montenegro's Embassy in Oslo and Adviser at the Directorate for Europe.
Between 2015 and 2016, Samardžić-Marković served on the European Union’s High Level Group on Sport Diplomacy, which had been established by European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth Tibor Navracsics and was chaired by IOC member and former President of the Hungarian Republic Pál Schmitt.
Married, with two children, she is fluent in English and Norwegian, and has a working knowledge of Russian.