Serbia annually uses around €200 million and up till now the usage was between 84 and 90 percent of the available funds.
KOPAONIK, March 5th 2014 (FoNet) – Chief Negotiator in the Accession Negotiations with European Union Tanja Miščević assessed that Serbia makes good utilisation of EU pre-accession funds and that up till now the usage was between 84 and 90 percent of the available funds.
“We are currently using around €200 million annually for institution-building and cross-border cooperation. We cannot use resources from major funding yet, the funding that provides resources for infrastructure and development of agriculture and villages,” said Miščević for RTS.
She added that if there was €1,6 million investment in Department of Agricultural Payments, the Department could obtain significant funds in this year already.
“This is a special Department which would directly fund the development of villages and agricultural production. Around €10 million annually is not an insignificant sum of money, but not until we acquire the level of greater usage,” Miščević concluded.
Miščević assessed that the next Government has to adopt the already prepared laws as soon as possible; this includes Law on Labour, Law on Bankruptcy and Privatisation, but also a large number of by-laws.
“This is the first thing to be done in the next stage. In the second half of the year there will be another set of laws, measures and actions with the main goal of creating suitable environment for further investments, but also of encouraging current investors to expand their activities, while at the same time maintaining the employment protection just like in the EU.”
