Today, the Minister for European Integration and the chief negotiator for conducting negotiations on Serbia’s accession to the European Union, Jadranka Joksimovic, chaired a regular meeting with the coordinators of six negotiating clusters, at which activities realized in the process of Serbia’s accession to the Union were discussed.
The most important topic of the meeting was the consideration of the new methodology for programming the development assistance of the European Union, it was announced from the relevant ministry.
Joksimovic stated that the Government of Serbia is preparing for the realization of the financial framework for IPA III for the period 2021-2027, which for the countries of the Western Balkans amounts to a total of 14.1 billion euros.
“After consultations at the highest level, by the decision of the National IPA Coordinator, proposals for activities for the two IPA programming years, 2021 and 2022, were submitted to the Delegation of the European Union at the end of July last year, and negotiations are currently underway,” Joksimovic said.
Unlike the IPA II programming process, the draft of the new IPA III programming framework envisages that in addition to sending action documents, the European Commission will receive additional documents from the beneficiary country on the basis of which it will be able to assess the maturity of submitted proposals for their implementation.
The nature of these documents depends on the type of project, the method of implementation and the type of contract by which the specific activity is implemented.
“It is important that in the preparatory phase we make additional efforts to get the technical documentation ready, just like the capacities of the competent institutions so that these procedures can be carried out without hindrance,” the minister emphasized.
It was also concluded at the meeting that the starting point in the process of determining priorities for financing from IPA III is Serbia’s obligations in the negotiation process, as well as the reform processes aimed at balanced socio-economic development.
“We should pay special attention to the jointly planned projects in the areas of energy and transport, which require significant investments, in order to provide better connections with the countries of the region and the EU, as well as environmental protection, for the benefit of all our citizens,” said Joksimovic.
The Minister and the cluster coordinators also analyzed other aspects of Serbia’s accession process to the European Union, especially those related to coordinating the work of clusters in the application of the new EU enlargement methodology, as well as harmonizing joint strategic communication on membership negotiations, RTV reports.
