Sectoral budget support is one of the most important instruments used by Serbia in the EU accession process, and so far, within the first instrument of that support, 80 million euros of grants have been withdrawn, and the new tranche will amount to 30 million euros, also grants, said acting Assistant Minister of State Administration and Local Self-Government, Mila Stanković.
She pointed out that the implementation of the second Sectoral Budget Support instrument is starting, which means that by fulfilling the criteria stipulated in the strategic documents, by proving to the EU the progress that has been made, Serbia has the possibility to withdraw more money, which is a direct support to the republic’s budget.
Those criteria, as she explained, are very strict and prescribed in advance.
“These are general criteria, and we primarily mean progress in the implementation of public administration reform, public finance reform, as well as budget transparency and macroeconomic policy stability. These are the four general and most important essential criteria that we prove in the process of reporting to the European Commission on the progress we have made done,” said Stanković.
The second set of criteria are variable, negotiated criteria.
“We devoted the previous almost two years to very intensive and demanding negotiations with the European Commission, and in that period we managed to crystallize six relevant and very demanding variable criteria that we will report on in the next three years,” said Stanković.
As she added, Serbia is obliged to report annually to the European Commission on the progress that has been made and to submit a financial request based on a self-assessment of that progress.
“Of course, the EU does not accept this for granted, we are also expected by an assessment mission, where together with our partners from the European Commission, we go through a very comprehensive process of proving the allegations that we submitted as part of the self-assessment, and only when these allegations are verified does the EU approve direct payment to the budget of the Republic of Serbia,” said Stanković.
“The European Union supports the efforts of the Government of Serbia to effectively implement its strategic and planning documents in the field of public administration reform for the benefit of the citizens of Serbia, who want to see the concrete results of that reform. The citizens of Serbia deserve to have a modern, efficient, transparent and professional public administration, and that is also our expectation from the future member of the European Union,” said Halačeva.
She added that the European Union will continue to provide Serbia with professional and financial support in this process.
“For this reason, Serbia and the EU recently signed an agreement on a new EU grant package in the amount of over 162 million euros, which also includes an amount of 30 million euros intended for sectoral budget support, specifically the reform of public administration. These funds should contribute to the implementation of concrete reform measures measure in the period 2023-2025,” Halačeva pointed out.
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