“Local self-government in Serbia and the European Union“ was the topic of the session held on 15 July at the public library “Dositej Obradovic“ in Novi Pazar. The forum was organised within the project “EUTEKA – the European Union at your library“ through which the European Union supports public libraries across Serbia in order to make them hubs on the EU-related information.
The event gathered representatives of local self-government, NGO sector and media, who were addressed by Aleksandra Vukmirovic Member of Team Europe Serbia and an expert on issues of local self-governing and the EU, and Esad Mahmutovic Head of Regulatory Affairs Department at Novi Pazar city administration. The session was moderated by Aleksandar Djukic, representative of the project “EUTEKA – the European Union at your library“.
Speaking about previous EU assistance to local self-governments in Serbia, Vukmirovic said it could be divided into two categories (capacity building assistance and assistance aimed at development of infrastructure) with a gross value of slightly over EUR400 million from 2011-2014. According to Vukmirovic, the European Union is the biggest single donor in the area of local self-government, noting that EU support is essential to the reform of local self-government and increasing the quality of citizen-oriented services. Without the EU, many local infrastructure projects could no be lifted off the ground due to lack of money at both local and state levels. Local self-governments in Serbia need to build their capacity and implement public administration reform in order to become more transparent and efficient, which are two of the most important tasks on the EU accession path, Aleksandra Vukmirovic said.
Esad Mahmutovic shared the experience Novi Pazar had gained in the process of EU accession and mentioned some of the most significant achievements the local self-government had made in its efforts to increase the quality of services offered to citizens. He pointed out the substantial contribution of the EU to the implementation of projects in Novi Pazar, but noted that, to make the cooperation with the EU even more successful, it was necessary to invest more effort in the training of civil servants.
Representatives of the local self-government and NGO sector from Novi Pazar present at the forum pointed to the need of stepping up mutual cooperation so that Novi Pazar could make better use of the benefits offered by the EU to local self-governments in Serbia on its path to full EU membership.
The forum was jointly organised by the public library “Dositej Obradovic“ in Novi Pazar and the project “EUTEKA – the European Union at your library“.
