Continuation of the 19th meeting of the Joint Committee for Succession of Diplomatic and Consular Properties of the former SFRY (Annex B to the Agreement on Succession Issues), was held in Belgrade on 2 and 3 July 2019.

The meeting was attended by representatives of all Successor States to the former SFRY on the Joint Committee: Bosnia and Herzegovina (Adnan Hadzikapetanovic), Republic of Croatia (Petar Uzorinac), Republic of North Macedonia (Borco Damjanov), Republic of Slovenia (Damjan Bergant) and the Republic of Serbia (Veljko Odalovic).

The agenda of the continuation of the 19th Joint Committee meeting included a number of current issues regarding the process of distribution of diplomatic and consular properties of the former SFRY – such as the joint sale of some properties of the former SFRY, while also reviewing ownership and legal status of certain properties listed in Annex B and examining possibilities to reach an agreement on further distribution of diplomatic and consular properties of the former SFRY.

The meeting was concluded by adopting a Resolution as well as a number of concrete decisions on all of the agenda items – including allocation of a number of immovable properties of the former SFRY.
In this context, the Successor States agreed to award to the Republic of Serbia the following properties – the Permanent Mission to the United Nations Office at Geneva, Consulate General in Frankfurt, Embassy and a house in Harare, and the Ambassador's residence in Conakry. The decision to allocate and award a number of properties of the former SFRY listed in the Appendix to Annex B of the Agreement was the first decision of its kind made by the Joint Committee in over 7 years.

Furthermore, property lists compiled in Appendix to Annex B were amended in line with the Agreement on Succession Issues, removing from the list a number of properties which had been found, upon examining their ownership and legal status and comparing it with the situation on the ground, to no longer be owned by or to never have been the property of the former SFRY, but also including the so-called "newly-found" properties of the former SFRY, those not previously recorded in the Appendix to Annex B. The above decisions were the first of their kind made by the Joint Committee so far.

The Joint Committee noted that the joint sales of the immovable properties of the former SFFRY in New York (residential apartment) and Tokyo (Embassy/residence) were brought to an end successfully, and also that the sale of the property in Bonn was in its final stages.

The representatives on the Joint Committee also discussed the prospects for physical division of the so-called large diplomatic compounds in Brasilia, New Delhi, Moscow and Addis Ababa, also agreeing that the list of works of art located on the diplomatic and consular properties of the former SFRY that remain unaccounted-for should be transmitted to INTERPOL for investigation and further steps within their purview.

The Belgrade meeting of the Joint Committee evolved in a constructive and working atmosphere and, despite the complexity of the former SFRY succession process, jointly made progress through compromise and adopted highly important decisions on certain issues.

The next, 20th Meeting of the Joint Committee for Succession of Diplomatic and Consular Properties of the former SFRY will be held in Sarajevo by the end of February 2020.