By 5th December this year, Serbia will get an official accreditation to start using EUR 175 million from IPARD funds because the European Commission’s auditors have ascertained that the country had met all the required conditions.
In other words, the Ministry of Agriculture has managed to eliminate all four shortages that the European Commission noticed, and that prevented Serbia from fully utilizing IPARD funds.
These shortages were in relation to securing a 2,500-square-metre premise for the Serbian Directorate for Agricultural Disbursements, renovation of the building that houses public enterprises Srbijasume, amendments to the Agriculture Law, and procedures relating to utilization of IPARD funds.
Additionally, the Ministry of Agriculture has managed to train staff that will help Serbian farmers with applying for funds which could be a very tricky and complicated process.
A source of the Blic daily from the Serbian government says that once the accreditation arrives from the European Commission, Serbian farmers are going to have the aforementioned funds immediately at their disposal.
“The Ministry has devised all the rules relating to IPARD grants, and in the second or third week of December, it is going to launch the first call for allocation of funds for tractors and other agricultural machinery. A total of EUR 40 million is at disposal for this particular call. The current Ministry of Agriculture has managed to rectify all the problems detected by the EC’s auditors in a record time, which included some left over from the previous administration, so that all the conditions set forth by the official Brussels are met”, the source adds.
(Blic, 25.11.2017)
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