Economic issues make up a much larger part of Serbia’s accession negotiations with the EU, but they are discussed incomparably less than political ones, it was said today in Belgrade at the meeting on the seventh cycle of drafting the Economic Reform Program (ERP) for the period 2021-2023.
The ERP is an umbrella economic document that aims to improve the management of economic policies and development.
The coordinator of the National Convention on the European Union (NCEU), Natasa Dragojlovic, said at the meeting that the ERP is the most important instrument for monitoring the situation in the economy and that it shows all sectors, how the government intends to develop them and what budget funds are intended for that.
“It is important that we have as many such documents as possible that the public can follow and that make the economy certain, but that document is by no means a substitute for Serbia’s development strategy that should be adopted and should be harmonized with EU strategies,” she said.
She added that, given that the EU is the most important trade partner, Serbia has harmonized regulations with it, to strive for the same goals in digitalization, innovation and ecology.
“These are all important goals that were stated yesterday by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Layen,” in her speech on the state of the Union, said the NKEU coordinator.
Dragojlovic said that two thirds of the negotiations on joining the EU are economic chapters, but “we spend more than 90 percent of our time talking about political criteria.”
“Without political will and legal security, economic reforms cannot be implemented,” Dragojlovic pointed out and explained that the issues of basic rights and security are also issues of economic rights.
The meeting announced the imminent publication of the ERP monitoring report for 2019, which should be published immediately before the EC report on candidates, which is expected on October 6, if there are no changes.
The good cooperation of the Working Group for ERP, which brings together ministries and institutions with representatives of civil society, the professional public and the business community, was also pointed out.
Verica Ignjatovic, from the Ministry of Finance, said at the meeting that the ERP reflects what is happening in the EU and that the program coincides with the “European semester” which coordinates economic policy in the EU.
As she pointed out, structural reforms are the most important for fulfilling the basic goals of the ERP – strengthening competitiveness, economic growth and employment growth.
The ERP concerns Chapter 17 in negotiations with the EU, as the most important strategic document in the EU economic dialogue and candidate countries whose purpose is to prepare the country for participation in the process of economic and fiscal surveillance conducted in EU member states (“European Semester”).
The drafting of the ERP begins in June, when the European Commission gives guidelines to the candidates, and ends in February next year, when the document is adopted by the government and sent to the European Commission. The EU Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) is reviewing the ERP and adopting recommendations for a new one.
Due to the pandemic, ECOFIN gave Serbia many recommendations in May this year, including measures to preserve employment, increase capital spending to accelerate growth, and reduce the gap between gross and net wages.
The ERP meeting was held as part of the “Prepare to Participate” project conducted by the Center for European Policies (CEP), NALED, the Center for Contemporary Policy (CSP) and the EWB, Beta reports.
