MINISTER UDOVICKI: COOPERATION BETWEEN THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND THE GOVERNMENT IS IMPORTANT

Bujanovac – The Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia and the Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government Kori Udovicki met with representatives of the municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja, representatives of the Albanian National Council, MPs from the region and the President of the Coordination Body Zoran Stankovic.

On that occasion, Minister Udovicki stated that the most important interests of the citizens were generated in the municipalities, and that around 70 percent of the benefits on Serbia's path towards the EU would be achieved precisely at the local level.

Minister Udovicki said that it was important for the republic and local authorities to cooperate, so that the performance of institutions and the cooperation between the governmental and local institutions could be further improved.

“One can’t build the future without cooperating and we have to prove that the future is stable, which will attract investments,” said Minister Udovicki.  

She added that we should very precisely and objectively  determine the criteria on the maximum number of employees in the administration.

“The current proposal, which I believe will be the case, is to determine the maximum number of employees. We are currently working on providing precisely the objective criteria, which may not be perfect but which will be much better than some kind of linear reduction in the number of employees, which won’t be discussed,” she said.  

Minister Udovicki said that it was necessary to determine “the rational number of employees in the specific institutions and when the specific local self-governments determine the maximum number of employees, it’s up to them to determine the most important positions and the positions to which employees should be assigned, as well as those in which the number of employees should be reduced.”    

Minister Udovicki also stated that Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja, apart from the usual problems that all the municipalities have, had some special issues, and promised the Government’s assistance with the employment of everyone, regardless of their nationality.

“This is the Government that works for the future. We want to build a country in which all its citizens and children – the Albanian, Serbian and Roma – will stay here and have the opportunity to get employed. It is, therefore, necessary to overcome a certain mistrust that is still present here and to start establishing cooperation,” Minister Udovicki said.   

The Minister said that 110 million euros had been invested in Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja since 2000, of which the Government of the Republic of Serbia had invested around 75 million euros, and that the Government would continue providing assistance to the region.  

The President of the Coordination Body for the Municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja,  Zoran Stankovic,  said that during the talks in Bujanovac,  MPs Riza Halimi and Saip Kamberi requested the resumption of discussions of representatives of the Albanians with the  Government of the Republic of Serbia on the implementation of the 2013 seven-point report. 

The said report of the Albanian political parties contains their requirements, which, in the form of a conclusion, was adopted by the Government of the Republic of Serbia in June 2013. However, the talks were discontinued in November of that year, due to the reform of the judiciary, by which the basic court and the prosecutor's office in Presevo were abolished.  

The Mayor of Bujanovac, Nagip Arifi, confirmed that the meeting with the Minister had proceeded in a very open and tolerant atmosphere and that problems had been discussed.  

“We openly talked about the problems of employment of the Albanians in public institutions, about health and education problems, as well as about everything that is important for the local self-government,” said Mr. Arifi.  

The President of the Coordination Body, Zoran Stankovic, was pleased with the talks about overcoming the problem with estimating the number of residents in Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja.  

“It is particularly important that all the participants in the meeting said that favorable conditions for discussing the assessment of the population of these municipalities had been created,” said Mr. Stankovic.  

Minister Udovicki also had a meeting in Bujanovac with the President of the Albanian National Council, Jonuz Musliu, during which the Deputy Prime Minister voiced satisfaction with the successful resolution of the problem of the change of street names in the municipality of Bujanovac.

Minister Udovicki said that the change of street names had been approved a week before, because a proposal, which was suitable to all of the residents of Bujanovac, was accepted.

“The issue of street names in Bujanovac, which is now an agreement reached in accordance with the composition of the population of Bujanovac and acceptable to all residents of Bujanovac, is an excellent example of how an obstacle can be overcome by the intelligence and the will, Minister Udovicki said.  

She pointed out that the proposal was made in agreement with everyone, as well as that the agreement was reached after a biased request had been turned down and a solution to the mutual benefit found.  

Minister Udovocki congratulated on the election of the President of the Albanian National Council in the elections held on October 26, 2014, and announced that the Republican Council for National Minorities would soon resume its operation.

The President of the Albanian National Council and the Municipal Assembly, Jonuz Musliju, expressed satisfaction with the Minister’s visit to Bujanovac and with the fact that she hadn’t avoided discussing any problems.  

The issues discussed at the meeting included the problems with textbooks in the Albanian language and with the media, as well as the use of the language when entering records into birth certificates.  

“The problem that we have heard is the issue of financing the National Council, which, like other issues, is constrained by the unresolved problem of the official estimates of the population of the municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja,” said Minister Udivicki, underscoring that there was a will to resolve the issue.   

“It is very important,” she added,” to increase accountability towards  spending the money provided for the operation of the Albanian National Council, which has to make its  financing transparent, lawful and within the jurisdiction of the Council.  

At the meeting of the President of the Red Cross of Serbia , Dragan Radovanovic , and the Mayor of Bujanovac, Nagip Arifi, which was also attended by the Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State Administration and Local Self- Government Kori Udovicki , it was agreed that the soup kitchen in that town would continue operating over the next month.  It was stipulated that after a month, in cooperation with the Government of the Republic of Serbia, a permanent solution for 1, 200 beneficiaries of the soup kitchen in Bujanovac would be found.  

Minister Udovicki expressed satisfaction with her contribution to  the reaching of a rapid agreement between the local self-government and the Red Cross on continuation of the operation of the soup kitchen, since it was very important for 1,200 beneficiaries of the soup kitchen from the region.

“The most important thing is that the agreement has been made and that we'll find a way for the soup kitchen to operate smoothly until the end of the year,” said Mr. Radovanovic.  

Source: “Tanjug” News Agency, “Beta” News Agency and Coordination Body