At the meeting, the joint EU-Serbia IPA Monitoring Committee has commended the progress that Serbia made in preparing strategically relevant projects especially in terms of compiling the Uniformed List of Priority Infrastructure Projects for Large-Scale Investments. It was also said that the EU allocated another 1.5 billion Euros for Serbia for the 2014-2020 period.
The meeting participants reported about the EU’s efficient and timely assistance to Serbia in dealing with the devastating floods and transit of migrants and refugees through over its territory – it was said in a press release of the European Integration Office.
Acting director of the Serbian government’s European Integration Office, Ksenija Milenković and Head of the Delegation of the European Union in Serbia, Mr. Michael Davenport presided over the joint committee.
Furthermore, the committee underlined the importance of the national sectoral policies and strategies as the foundation for implementation of EU projects and programmes thus linking them to the budget planning and execution.
The meeting participants also talked about two key challenges, namely securing sufficient institutional capacities for programme and project management in the Republic of Serbia and eliminating bottlenecks in implementation of environmental infrastructure projects at the municipal level.
Michael Davenport spoke about the importance of undertaking a more determined action in order to overcome the said challenges and to ensure an even better utilisation of the European funds in the future – the press release states.
IPA is the EU’s main financial instrument for assistance to Serbia during the country’s accession process.
The EU is the biggest donor in Serbia and, in the last 15 years, the Union has donated over 3 billion Euros worth of financial assistance for development of healthcare, energy, science & research, judiciary reform, culture and transport.
The IPA Monitoring Committee meets twice in year to supervise the implementation of financial assistance and the IPA projects in Serbia – the press release says.
(RTS, 09.03.2016)
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