Agreement on the financing of the Multiannual Operational Programme for Employment, Skills and Social Inclusion between Serbia and the EU signed

The programme will finance assistance to employment, education, housing and social protection of citizens of the Republic of Serbia until 2032. National IPA Coordinator and State Secretary at the Ministry for European Integration Mira Radenović Bojić highlighted the programme as "a significant step in efforts to directly assist citizens, especially young people, and enable better living and working conditions, using the knowledge and experience shared with us by our European partners. With this programme, Serbia sends a clear message that the European Union and our country are working together to solve the most important problems that people face on a daily basis and in a way that recognizes and invests in their potential to stay and be successful in Serbia."

Training, internships and other ways for young people to gain the qualifications and experience needed for employment will be financed. Support will be provided for the development of education by equipping schools with modern classrooms for teaching physics, chemistry and biology and by financing the development of a system for the recognition of prior learning and the acquisition of qualifications in line with European standards. The programme will finance the construction and procurement of apartments and houses for young people and vulnerable groups with unresolved housing issues in Serbia. It will support the assistance of children without parental care to receive care in the local community through financing the necessary social protection services and the renovation of the necessary infrastructure for the provision of services.

Andreas von Beckerat, Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Serbia, said: “The signing of this ambitious programme is an important step on Serbia’s path to EU membership. Serbia will be better prepared to manage European cohesion funds, as well as EU Member States. This is also an important contribution to EU support for social services, for the benefit of Serbian citizens. The programme promises concrete results for young people and vulnerable households where they are most needed – in education, employment and social housing – through cooperation between government and civil society.”

 

In addition to the significant benefits that the programme will bring to citizens, of particular value is the new way of implementing EU assistance to Serbia that the programme establishes by introducing a Managing and Intermediate Bodies, i.e. by introducing a system that is much more similar to the acquis communautaire in practice in the Member States of the European Union for the use of EU cohesion policy funds. For this programme, the Managing Body is the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs. The Intermediary Bodies for Policy Management are the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Tourism and Youth, the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure and the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration, while the Intermediary Body for Financial Management is the Ministry of Finance - Sector for Contracting and Financing of Programs from European Union Funds. By establishing the capacity of such a system for the programming years 2024-2027 of the Multiannual Operational Program, according to Mira Radenović Bojić, "Serbia will demonstrate its readiness to successfully implement support for the program areas and for even greater funds that would be available through membership in the European Union."