IMPLEMENTATION OF EU PROJECTS WITH SUPPORT OF THE SERBIAN GOVERNMENT
17.07.2014

At the initiative of the President of Municipality of Palilula Nis Boban Džunić, delegation of Nis city municipality was received by Jadranka Joksimovic, Minister without portfolio, responsible for European Integration of the Republic of Serbia. The reason for this meeting of the Minister and the president of the municipality of Palilula was finding the answer to the question "how to find systemic solutions to support activities of cities and municipalities in Serbia".

In a situation where there are insufficient funds in the budget, when our budgets are far from development, we easily miss the opportunity by EU funds, to provide our funds for new investment and development – thus began a conversation with the President of the municipality of Palilula Boban Džunić with Jadranka Joksimovic, Minister without portfolio for European integration.

In the current process of European integration of Serbia, in particular association and accession, local governments, institutions and government institutions had variable success when applying for the use of EU funds. Our country was available to apply to only a few funds, such as: Cross-Border Neighborhood Programme (Cross border program), Exchange, and Regional socio economic program.

"We usually send projects on calls of cross-border program Bulgaria-Serbia", which is like an instrument of the European Union, aimed at promoting and supporting cross-border cooperation, to reduce existing differences in development between regions on the outside European Union, and to improve relationships between local communities and strengthen the cultural, social and economic cooperation, said in an interview with the Minister Joksimovic municipal president Boban Džunić. Our municipality of Palilula is active for several years at the forefront of the region in achieving the projects supported by EU funds. Thanks to this activity, we have significantly improved the work in our community; contributed to improving the quality of life for our citizens while at the same time we did not use the funds from our budget. How important is that and what is the volume of the collected funds to the community, is seen by the data that we have that completed projects have received funding in the amount of € 1,573,181. The total values of the projects for which we have applied this year are about € 927,226.

With the realization of EU projects Palilula Municipality of Nis has achieved significant-Partnership with Bulgarian cities Svoge, Kustendil, Bobov Dol, Botevgrad, Ihtiman. Within the collaboration with partners in the region, the municipalities in Bulgaria, Palilula has used to promote its potential and opened the possibility of economic cooperation, especially in the small and medium enterprises. Our work has been recognized by representatives of the EU, which praised our work and highlighted it as a good example in the region. However, this brings us to the fundamental problem, says Džunić, "of how and where to provide the necessary resources to support the implementation of projects in the EU," which leads us to search for an appropriate system solutions at the state level, according to the model of the neighboring countries that have recently joined the EU. So far we have only had the support of the City of Nis and understanding of Mayor Prof. Dr. Zoran Perisic. Džunić said to the Minister Joksimovic what are the key problems faced by local authorities, institutions, civil society organizations, after obtaining the project. "For the realization of a larger EU funded project, the project will need to provide technical documents worth several thousand euros and then provide appropriate financing. Because of the principle in these programs (such as the Neighbourhood Programme) is that the project proposer consumes 20 percent of the funds that were transferred from the EU to fund pre-financing of the project, to cover the rest of the investment of their funds, and after the submitted financial and narrative reports and monitoring of the First Level Control of Ministry of Finance, it should be requesting a refund and return of money spent. These are great resources, especially for the small and poor municipalities in southern Serbia, which typically falls in devastated category of rural and underdeveloped areas. Palilula municipality with its 80,000 inhabitants, as the city municipality of the City of Nis, is one of the poorest municipalities in the Republic. Once upon a very strict procedure you get a project, you are faced with the fact that you do not have the funds for its implementation. Option is to give up, use adverse credit services of commercial banks, or to provide appropriate support of the state.