Head of the EU Integration Office Milica Delevic and German Ambassador to Serbia Wolfram Maas exchanged notes which will approve Serbia an additional €110 million of German development assistance in the remit of renewable energy, primarily biomass.
Delevic underlined that Germany is Serbia’s most important bilateral donor and that with today’s agreement about a non-commercial loan it has further fortified this position.
She added that accordingly, the EU is also Serbia’s largest donor, specifying that it accounts for 70% of the total development assistance which Serbia received over the past ten years.
Maas explained that this is a non-commercial loan of €100 million and a grant of €10 million, with which Germany’s assistance to Serbia in 2011 has reached a record €232 million.
He stressed that Germany is ready to endorse Serbia in any way possible on its path to a better future, recalling that since 2000, his country has granted Serbia bilateral assistance totalling €1.2 billion.
Germany’s goal is to develop the biomass market in Serbia, Maas noted, adding that this is an important step for maintaining economic development and bringing Serbia closer to the EU.
Serbia made a commitment to respect EU goals – to increase the share of renewable energy by 20% before 2020 and reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by the same percentage – and it can fulfil this goal by using biomass, the Ambassador observed.
Maas noted that bearing in mind that Serbia imports 45% of the energy it needs, it should make use of its potential in biomass in order to decrease in dependency on import.
Minister of Environment, Mining and Spatial Planning Oliver Dulic stressed that Serbia has plenty renewable energy sources, primarily biomass, which may become Serbia’s important export trump card.
Dulic observed that Serbia has millions of tones of unused biomass which could be exported to help create tens of thousands of jobs.
A representative of the German Ministry of Economy and Development Johanna Brüggemann said that the €100 million will be approved to Serbia through the German Development Bank KfW under quite favourable conditions.
She added that the interest rate will most likely be 2.5–3%, with a repayment period of up to 15 years and a three to five year grace period; however, these terms are yet to be specified.
Source emg.rs
