What is "minister without portfolio"

n. (context politics English) A member of a government having the rank of cabinet minister, but not assigned to oversee a particular government department or other permanent area of responsibility.

A minister without portfolio is either a government minister with no specific responsibilities or a minister who does not head a particular ministry. The sinecure is particularly common in countries ruled by coalition governments and a cabinet with decision-making authority wherein a minister without portfolio, while he or she may not head any particular office or ministry, still receives a ministerial salary and has the right to cast a vote in cabinet decisions. In some countries where the executive branch is not composed of a coalition of parties and, more often, in countries with purely presidential systems of government, such as the United States, the position (or an equivalent position) of minister without portfolio is uncommon.

Minister without portfolio is a minister in the Government of Serbia with no specific responsibilities or a minister that does not head a particular ministry.

The office was usually held simultaneously by several people at the same time (in the government of Mirko Marjanović there were ten Ministers without portfolio at one point).

The current Ministers without portfolio are Jadranka Joksimović (since 27 April 2014), Slavica Đukić Dejanović and Milan Krkobabić (since 11 August 2016).