During five years of implementation, the Policy and Legal Advice Centre (PLAC III) project provided assistance to the Serbian state administration in harmonising the national legislation with Union acquis. As a result, drafts of 190 proposed laws and by-laws harmonised with EU standards and 476 other strategic documents were prepared, the administrative capacities of relevant institutions were strengthened and the work of negotiating groups was supported.

PLAC III is the fifth project in a series that provides legal assistance to the EU accession process and the negotiation process, which makes PLAC one of the EU projects with the longest “tradition” in Serbia. By its nature, it has a special place in the wide range of EU projects implemented in our country, because it has strategic importance on the way to the EU and provides the legal basis for the introduction of European standards in all spheres of life.

PLAC III started in January 2019. The planned duration of the project of 30 months (until July 2021) was suspended in the spring of 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic for more than two months, and then extended twice – the first time until February 2023 and then until April 2024 . The entire implementation period is 60 months.

With its activities, the project covered 14 negotiation chapters (chapters 1, 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 27, 28, 32 and 33). A total of 189 experts from 20 European countries were engaged, the vast majority of whom are from EU member states, but experts from Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia also were hired. As many as 4,620 expert working days were invested in working with beneficiary institutions and providing support in harmonising Serbian legislation with Union acquis, as well as strengthening the institutional capacities of relevant national structures for successfully conducting accession negotiations.

Project activities were carried out through direct work with beneficiary institutions on the harmonisation of legislation, as well as through the organisation of workshops, trainings, seminars and two study visits to EU member states (Italy and Slovenia). Through the media briefings “EU for you – what European standards bring to Serbia”, the project tried to bring the concrete benefits of joining the EU to the wider public.

The results of the project will provide a legal basis for the harmonisation of domestic legislation in a large number of areas – from the recognition of professional qualifications to food safety and environmental protection. Thus, among the 190 draft laws and by-laws created with the project support, there are proposals, among others, for a new law on climate change, drinking water, tobacco products.

The largest number of activities was realised in Negotiating Chapters 12 (Food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy), 15 (Energy) and 27 (Environment and climate change).

According to the project leader Andrej Engelman, “the project went well, especially because in most cases the response of the Government of Serbia ministries was very good, because people want to do something and change. And because of that, it happened that the experts hired by the project did more than was initially foreseen: they made additional proposals and created the documents needed for further harmonisation”.

Engelman says that three chapters stand out as the most successful: they are chapters 12, 15 and 27, in which the largest number of activities were organszed and on which the largest number of working days were spent. “Especially in the areas of Chapter 15, a lot has been done in the last two years, from documents related to radiation safety to energy efficiency, which was worked on a lot in the last phase of the project,” said the leader of the PLAC III project.

What do beneficiaries say? In the Ministry of Health, the head of the Department of Border Inspection, Mirjana Veljković, assessed that the cooperation with the project was successful and that the Ministry received drafts of harmonised legislation, all with the aim of protecting health and consumers. “The selected experts of the project showed great knowledge of the regulations and good practices in the requested areas. We sincerely hope that the activities of this project will continue even after PLAC III, because the benefits achieved through long-term cooperation with this project are exceptional” (from the project brochure “The second third: achievements and results in the period September 2020 – July 2021“).

Infographics and brochures that can be used to follow the five-year work of the project are available on the following link: https://euinfo.rs/plac3/en/publications/. One of the publications published by the project is the electronic book “Manual on the application of the concept of human rights in the planning, drafting and implementation of laws“.

The total project budget amounts to EUR 5,423,220. The project is managed by the Delegation of the European Union in the Republic of Serbia, and is implemented by a consortium led by DMI Associates in cooperation with Eastern Bridge and GIZ.

The project ends on 12 April 2024. The final conference of the project is scheduled for 26 March in Belgrade.