More money for municipalities - European Union's 14m EUR worth of programme of support to regional development of Serbia presented

(Kragujevac)

European Union's programme of support to regional development, worth about 14m EUR, was presented yesterday (December 9, 2009) in Kragujevac. The money will be provided from the EU pre-accession funds, which will be put at the disposal of the regional agencies for economic development, local self-governments, chambers of commerce and associations of entrepreneurs in 17 regions in Serbia's provinces. The open competition for these funds was opened yesterday and it will be closed in 90 days.

The lowest amount of funds that can be granted per project is 300,000 EUR, while the maximum amount is 500,000 EUR. Local self-governments will be able to participate together, under the condition that they operate in the neighboring regions.

The project named "Regional Social Economic Development Programme 2" was promoted yesterday in the Kragujevac Business Innovation Center by the Head of the EU delegation to Serbia, Vincent Degert, and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Regional Development, Mlađan Dinkić. The latter announced that the Government would adopt the decision of formation of the national council for regional development as the first step towards essential decentralization of Serbia, which should be followed by formation of the council at the regional level.

Dinkić also added that European Statistics Bureau "Eurostat" had approved of the statistical division of Serbia into seven regions. The Minister also said that he would insist on adoption of the Law on Return of Property to Local Self-governments at the first meeting of Parliament in 2010, which was the condition for decentralization.