The Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) and Government of Serbia signed Regional Housing Programme Grant Agreements worth some 21.5 million euros for two sub-projects aimed at providing durable housing solutions for almost 1,600 refugee families.
“Today we give green light for the preparations for two important projects with a global value of over 20 million euros that will benefit more than 1,580 refugee families through the construction of 435 flats, the provision of 200 pre-fabricated houses, 650 sets of building materials, and the purchase of 300 village houses,” said Deputy Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia Oscar Benedikt.
“I am very proud that the EU is the main donor of these projects,” he added.
One sub-project approved to Serbia is aimed at providing durable housing solutions for 870 refugee families from Croatia and Bosnia, who wish to integrate in Serbia, through construction of 200 apartments in multi-apartment buildings, 120 pre-fabricated houses, provision of 300 construction material and purchase of 250 village houses.
Another agreement is related to sub-project 3 that should provide housing solutions for 715 refugee families through construction of 235 apartments in Ovca municipality in Belgrade, 80 pre-fabricated houses for beneficiaries in different Belgrade municipalities, 350 construction material and purchase of 50 village houses.
Project will be implemented in different municipalities of the City of Belgrade: Zemun, Palilula, Vozdovac, Novi Beograd, Grocka, Surcin, Obrenovac, Zvezdara, Rakovica, Barajevo, Stari Grad, Mladenovac, Lazarevac, Savski venac, Sopot, Cukarica and Vracar.
Both projects expected to be implemented entirely by early 2016.
“Regional Housing Programme is especially important for us as it deals with refugee housing. Unfortunately Europe still houses many refugees and most of them are located in Serbia. This programme is thus very important as it will provide houses to that mostly in need in BiH, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia and enable closure of remaining collective centres,” said Stephan Sellen, who signed the agreements on behalf of CEB.
“Since the beginning of the RHP, four projects for refugee housing have already been approved for Serbia, and their total value is 40,906,751 euros. Serbia has recently submitted another project of a significant value which will be evaluated in the Assembly of Donors meeting in November in Paris,” he added.
The first RHP Grant Agreement for Serbia was signed on the 14 th of March 2014. The grant of up to EUR 1,993,000 will finance the implementation of SRB1 – provision of 125 building material packages and 70 prefabricated houses to the benefit of 195 households.
“We have been informed that the first beneficiaries of this project will receive housing assistance in the end of this month which makes all RHP stakeholders very pleased as it shows that the RHP has started to deliver results,” Sellen said.
The EU is a significant donor to the RHP fund worth 148 million euros.
“The EU is consistently contributing to solutions helping the refugees. We have donated €230 million towards this programme. On top of it, the EU is the biggest donor for refugees and IDPs through our IPA instrument. In Serbia alone, since the year 2000 we have donated over €74 million for helping these people, for example by ensuring that they move to normal flats all over Serbia,” Benedikt said.
