On 31 January, the European Central Bank (ECB) reported that the National Bank of Serbia will continue to receive an EU-funded assistance programme until 31 December 2013.
On 18 March 2011, ECB announced the launch of the €2.5 million programme in order to assist the National Bank of Serbia to implement the banking standards of the European Union. The programme, funded by the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assitance, covers eleven different areas: (i) financial sector supervision; (ii) legal harmonisation; (iii) liberalisation of capital movements; (iv) foreign exchange reserve management; (v) monetary and exchange rate operations; (vi) financial services consumer protection; (vii) EU accession support; (viii) economic analysis and research; (ix) statistics; (x) payment systems; (xi) and financial stability.
Through the programme the National Bank of Serbia is preparing strategies, economic models and internal policies that meet the standards applied by the EU central banks. Moreover, it transposes laws of the EU regulatory regime into the Serbian law. Furthermore, the staff of Serbia’s Central Bank acquires expertise and skills through training courses and study visits to institutions in the EU Member States.
The programme involved experts from the ECB and the EU Central Banks (Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Hungary, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland and the United Kingdom).
However, the extension of the programme will be implemented by the ECB but without the assistance of Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Poland, Finland and the UK.
Regarding the integration process for Serbia, Country’s Deputy Prime Minister for European integration, Suzana Grubjesic, stated before the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, on 23 January that Serbia needs to get a starting date for EU accession talks.
Source NEWEUROPE
