MEETING OF THE COORDINATION BODY’S PRSIDENCY

1. February 2016.

Belgrade – Following the meeting of the Presidency of the Coordination Body of the Government of the Republic of Serbia for the Municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja, Zoran Stankovic, the President of the Coordination Body, held a press conference at which he said that the report on the work of the Coordination Body and the leaders of the three municipalities done in 2015 had been adopted and that new activities for 2016 had been agreed upon.

Mr. Stankovic pointed out that the funds, which the Government of the Republic of Serbia, transferred, through the Coordination Body, to the three municipalities, had been allocated. The municipality of Bujanovac received 114.4 million dinars for 2016, the municipality of Presevo 105 million dinars and the municipality of Medvedja 36.1 million dinars. Those funds will be spent on infrastructure projects in the three municipalities, as well as on the other activities. Mr. Stankovic underscored that the Coordination Body and the local self-governments had had, over the previous year, demanding tasks related to refugees, which had been resolved well, adding that he hoped that even better results would, in that respect, be achieved in 2016.

Nagip Arifi, the Mayor of Bujanovac, said that he regretted that the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia had reduced the amount of funds for the municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja for 2016, especially the portion referring to subsidies, which was reduced by eight million dinars. He pointed out that the municipality of Bujanovac would receive that year, through the Coordination Body, 40 million dinars for the development of small and medium-sized enterprises and for incentives for employment. Mr. Arifi said that the municipality of Bujanovac had been, in that respect, more effective during the previous year than the municipalities of Presevo and Medvedja, as well as that the municipality of Bujanovac had been given 45% of the total funds for the three municipalities for 2016.

Nenad Arsic, the Mayor of Medvedja, said that the meeting had been very successful and that the attitudes of the participants in the meeting had been analyzed in the first part of the meeting, adding that they were all unanimously adopted, and that the budget for 2016 had been discussed in the second part of the meeting. He pointed out that there had been no disagreements in that respect and that a “gentlemen’s agreement” had been reached, which everyone was pleased with. He also said that the municipality of Medvedja had received two million dinars more that year compared with the previous one. Mr. Arsic added that an agreement should be signed between the Departments of the Nis Faculties of Law and Economics in Medvedja, which still operated for the final-year students, the municipality of Medvedja and the Coordination Body, as an intermediary. The Mayor of Medvedja pointed out that the talks on the maximum number of employees in the municipalities were also being held.

Mr. Stankovic ended the meeting by saying that the security situation in those three municipalities was stable and that there were no indications that it might deteriorate. When asked by a journalist whether there were any so-called fighters on the battlefield in Syria who were coming from the municipality of Bujanovac , Nagip Arifi, the President of that local-self-government, said that there weren’t any.

Source: Coordination Body