In the early 1990s, Jeremić and his parents were forced to leave Yugoslavia after falling out with the country's communist government. Jeremić graduated from Cambridge and Harvard in 1998 and 2003, respectively, and was active in several pro-democracy student movements during the 1990s. In the early 2000s, he joined what "The New York Times" deemed Serbia's "most westward-leaning government" as an advisor to President Boris Tadić. In May 2007, Jeremić was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. During his tenure, he spearheaded Serbia's fervent opposition to Kosovo's unilateral secession, the Serbian authorities arrested a number of war crimes suspects and extradited them to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, and there was a significant improvement in relations between Serbia and the West. In 2009, the European Union lifted all visa restrictions on citizens of Serbia, and in 2012, declared the country a candidate for membership.