TRANSNATIONAL PROJECT 2002
- REPORT -
I ROUND TABLE
THE ROLE OF NONGOVERMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS IN IMPROVING
ECONOMIC REFORMS: EU PRACTICES AND EXPERIENCES
Novi Sad, July 2002
Mr. Dragomir Vasic, NGO European Vojvodina President has opened
the workshop. He welcomed all participants by presenting the agenda
and introduced the Vice-president of Serbian Government, Mr. Milorad
Isakov.
Mr. Isakov reminded how important NGO role was in the period of
political changes during 2000 as well as in development of civil
society in transition period that followed.
He has also expressed a hope that nongovernmental sector will make
a strong connections between governmental and profitable sector.
Mr. Danijel Pantic, Secretary General has presented European Movement
in Serbia. He made a short presentation of ten years of activities
in the time well known by the very hard conditions for the existence
of nongovernmental organizations; he presented numbers of projects
organized as EMinS way of fight for democratic changes and democratic
consolidation with partner from Government, nongovernmental and
profitable sector after the elections 2000.
Mr. Pantic also obtained a public opinion that said almost 80% of
citizens were unsatisfied with the results Government reached in
last two years. There for he described a new set
of coalition between nongovernmental and governmental sector established
through entrepreneurs support.
He presented first actions in that direction :
- Founding of Euro Info Centre in aim of business information exchanges
- Public procurement law preparation and rule of NGO in making a
draft
- Creation of software for Municipalities that will provide direct
trade for SME's in public procurement and cooperation of 30 Local
Councils in Serbia and Municipalities on this project
- Cooperation of NGOs and Public diplomacy
- Public hearings
Mr. Goran Cetinic presented basic terms on poverty:
Bottom line for poverty is 1$ spent per person per day!
In 1990 under this average were 14% of citizens and increased in
1999 to 33%! This data was given by Strategic Marketing who did
the research for UN and a number of domestic organizations. Opinion
of some experts is that this percentage is much higher since Kosovo
was not included in the research.
Mr. Cetinic presented a strategy for reducing the poverty through
PRSP project which includes 23 countries from Africa, Turkey, Albania,
and Moldavia. This project is in a middle of arranging a strategic
Paper for Yugoslavia by Government of FRY, World Bank and PRSP.
The first phase is researching in order to present the part of society
that is the most jeopardize and will last from July 2002 to Jun
2003.
Goran Cetinic especially pointed at the problem of micro financing
that does not function in our country although it would contribute
the quicker development.
Mr. Vlada Grbic presented forms of economic organizations in West
Europe and successful models that should be followed. Ha had also
given some information on how these organizations fundraised and
what was the Governmental financial support.
The situation in this area is pretty much confused since there are
no sorted data of structures and numbers of organizations in Yugoslavia.
The assumption is there are at least 4000 different unions but most
of them are trading with fruits and vegetables.
Miroslav Vukovic, INKO, made a Power Point presentation of software
"Internet Public Procurement in Serbia" developed by INCO
within TASPP Project which includes 28 municipalities in Serbia.
Participant's questions
Laslo Darabus, Reformists of Vojvodina
How to improve the production and how to employ the unemployed?
What is the NGO role in this process? What European Movement can
do to change the environment- by lobbing or
?
Cetinic: This is a very difficult period for banking system - heritage
from past and absence of any competition. Banks that were given
sources for small and medium enterprises were not able to distribute
it . Micro credits do not exist in our country which is hard to
believe. NGOs might lobby and become subjects which provide micro
credits ( like UNHCR during Milosevic's rule).
European Movement and its Economical Form will accept every initiative.
D.Pantic: There are two types of NGOs: the ones that take care
of interest of its own members and the other that deals with general
society problems. Problem that this sector has is a lack of information
about organization's activities and it's mostly thanks to the media;
there is no synchronization between domestic and foreign NGOs. Contrary
to the desire for splitting jobs, everybody should work according
to its organizations' goals and there should exist competition because
it leads to the improvement of the overall situation , to reforms
and market opening since in the world the most valuable are goods,
informations and knowledge. European movement participates in this
process through series of one day seminars "How to prepare
business plan" led by Zvonko Brnjas.
Miroslav Vrtunski, d.o.o. "Vrt":
How to stimulate people who own home-saved money to invest?
G.Cetinic: There is foreign currency inflow from real estate in
Croatia. The amount is big enough but it is not a sign of wealthy
because individual amounts are small.
D. Pantic: Lack of business culture is obvious - everybody seeks
for money but has no projects to support the credit. They are avoiding
gendering into any kind of cooperation. Home-saved money is the
result of the actions on a various black markets, so it is reasonable
those people have no confidence in legal system.
Cedomir Keco, Reformists of Vojvodina: Speaking of poverty citizens
of Vojvodina are dealing with many difficulties. National income
per person in 1990 in Vojvodina was 3.090,00 US$, today it is barely
over 1.000,00 US$. Vojvodina deals with number of internal problems.
We also find hard to explain that what we have doesn't mean the
other don't, on the contrary. The only region that means something
in this country has been left with no initial capital after ten
years of catastrophe. System did not change its approach toward
the region which stands for county developing machine, there are
no progressive laws not even for the agriculture. I would like just
to mention the problems that occurred ion the migration period -
growth of black economy. Government has no reformation approach
in order to solve difficulties. It looks like they are using the
Milosevic's methods, only with more style. It brings new problems
and leads to the poverty. I think NGOs should put more effort during
the process of changes toward legal regulations .
Cetinic: Transformation from black to legal market was achieved
by the micro credit system in the other courtiers in transition.
Another goal is to reach a decentralization of decision making and
NGOs are struggling for it. The poverty reduction strategic is consisting
of all of facts you mentioned .
Pantic: There is no injustice in the privatization. We are just
in the worst period of this process. We can no talk about any serious
development without steady investments.
Grbic: Local governments reforms are to be done first, as well
as the improving the leading subjects in the process of development
and that are SMEs.
II ROUND TABLE
THE ROLE OF NONGOVERMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS IN IMPROVING
ECONOMIC REFORMS: EU PRACTICES AND EXPERIENCES
Working Meeting, Belgrade July, 2002
Mr. Vojin Dimitrijevic, NGO Belgrade Center for Human Rights President
has opened the meeting. He welcomed all participants by presenting
the result from Novi Sad Round Table and introduced Mr. Marko Nicovic.
Mr. Marko Nicovic, expert in economic criminal explained the current
situation in Serbia concerning economy and role of NGO's in monitoring
economic reforms in order to prevent economic criminal and improve
possibilities of our country to for fill conditions for entering
the EU.
Mr. Mihajlo Vasiljevic, president of NGO Generation 21, especially
appointed problems of young people in process of economic reforms.
He recommended cooperation of youth NGO's in preparing wide and
profound programe with the Ministry of Economy and Finance and Ministry
of Sport and Youth in order to improve financial situation of young
people in Serbia.
This round table was highly visible event, with good media coverage
and was attended by more than forty representatives from different
institutions. It is important to say that participants were from:
ˇ Federal and republic ministries
ˇ Representatives of Youth NGO's
ˇ Students interested in this subject
II ROUND TABLE
''The Fifth Enlargement of the European Union - Consequences for
Serbia and Montenegro''
The second Round table was held on 11th of February 2003, in the
facilities of European movement in Serbia with a working title "The
Fifth Enlargement of the European Union - Consequences for Serbia
and Montenegro". The speakers were:
ˇ Mr. Jan-Willem Blankert - Delegation of the European Commission
to the FRY (Serbia and Montenegro)
ˇ Mr. Duško Lopandić - European Movement in Serbia
ˇ Mr. Mihailo Crnobrnja - Ministry for foreign economic relations,
Republic of Serbia
ˇ Mr. Radovan Vukadinović - Faculty of Law, University of Kragujevac
This round table was highly visible event, with good media coverage
and was attended by more than forty representatives from different
institutions. It is important to say that participants were from:
ˇ Federal and republic ministries
ˇ Federal and republic parliament
ˇ Members of the Commission for the coordination of the accession
process to the EU
ˇ Members of the Federal Office for the EU accession
ˇ Members of the Forum for International Relations
ˇ Students interested in this subject
One and maybe the most important conclusions of this debate was
that no accession to the EU is possible without greatly needed consensus
of all political parties. Our country needs to find a way to create
and (even more important) to keep the political stability, to consolidate
democracy and bring back the trust in the institutions. The tempo
in which we are going to get closer to the, we can know easily say,
Europe - since the European Union is likely to become the Europe
it self - is predominately determined by our selves, by the speed
in which we are conducting reforms in our on home.
At the contrary to the Central Europe which went quite calmly through
the transition period, with no significant confrontations, and certainly
with no open bloodsheds; the Western Balkan region had ten years
of crises, ethnic confrontations and bloodsheds. All countries of
this region have the same symptoms: insufficient stability of democratic
institutions, undeveloped civil society, constant political confrontations,
unsolved ethnic problems, etc. Nevertheless all of these countries
have a highly noticeable desire to become member of the European
Union, and in that way to convert to a prominent member of a family
of democratic nations of Europe.
Serbia and Montenegro are among the last countries of this region
which headed towards the EU and according to that the country (or
the Union) with a longest lane to Brussels. It is clear that the
integration process can not build up independently from the situation
in the country - quite the opposite. First steps are in democratization
of society, creating the rule of law and market economy. Considering
the time that we have lost on the internal confrontations we need,
now to work simultaneously on raising the level of political stability
in the country and on creating the common strategy with the Western
Balkan countries. We need to coordinate our approach to the EU in
questions of mutual interest. On the other hand that kind of approach
would most certainly be a kind of a good encouragement for the EU
to create certain pre-accession strategy for this region. The Thessalonica
meeting, which will be held on 21st of Jun, should be a right place
for EU to show that the Western Balkan countries are potential candidates
for EU membership. The EU should not seize it self as closed fortress
in which "barbarians" shell no enter, but we should also
be aware that we will not be able to enter that "elite club"
until we fulfill some prerequisites. The thing gets even more complicated
when you look at the EU as a moving target, each waste of time on
the internal confrontations will add few more steps on this already
very long road to Europe.
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