Tim za socijalno uključivanje i smanjenje siromaštva

Civil society organizations within the National Convention on the European Union will be monitoring the implementation of the Economic Reform Programme (ERP) and the Employment and Social Reform Programme (ESRP), on the basis of a Framework Agreement signed with the Government of Serbia. Furthermore, the National Convention will be informing the general public about the implementation of these two important programmes for Serbia’s European integration process.

Economic policies and reforms are a key part of Serbia’s EU accession process and are intertwined with many negotiations chapters. For this reason an Economic Reform Programme was developed, not directly related to concrete negotiations chapters, that precisely determines the areas in which economic reforms will be implemented in the forthcoming period. It is adopted on a yearly basis and contains two-year projections.

The current Economic Reform Programme for 2017-2019 was adopted in March 2017, and two months later a consultative meeting was held with EU member states within the Economic and Financial Affairs Council. The ERP envisages fifteen priority structural reforms in nine areas and precisely determines the economic reforms that will be implemented in the forthcoming period and in which areas.

The fiscal and medium-term macroeconomic frame for 2017-2019 is a constituent part of the current ERP. Priority structural reforms are also a key part of the document, and according to the current ERP these will be implemented in the following areas: public finance management, energy, transport and telecommunications markets, sector development, business environment and curbing the gray economy, research and innovations, foreign trade and investment incentives, education and skills, employment and labour market, social inclusion, poverty reduction, promotion of equal opportunities.

The preparation of the first draft of the new ERP, which will also contain projections for the next two-year period (2018-2020), the implementation of which will be monitored by the Convention organization, is planned in December, after which a public consultations process will be conducted.

At the beginning of September, four organizations within the National Convention on the European union signed a Framework Agreement with the Government of Serbia on the Platform for monitoring the implementation of the Economic Reform Programme and the Employment and Social Policy Reform Programme which will specify the cooperation activities in detail.

Source: www.emins.org