Economic Issues Make up Most of Serbia's Talks with EU, but Political Ones Are Talked About More

Natasa Dragojlovic (BETAPHOTO/MILAN OBRADOVIC)

Economic issues account for a much bigger portion of Serbia's accession negotiations with the EU, but they are talked about much less than the political ones, said participants in a Sept. 17 meeting on the seventh cycle of making of the Economic Reform Program (ERP) for 2021-2023.

The ERP is an economic document aimed at enhancing management of economic policies and development. National Convention on the European Union Coordinator Natasa Dragojlovic said at the gathering that the ERP was the most important instrument for monitoring the state of the economy and that all sectors were viewed through it, along with how the government planned to develop them and what budget funds were earmarked for the purpose.

"It is important that we have as many of these documents as possible, which the public can follow and which make doing business certain for the economy, but that document is in no way a substitute for Serbia's development strategy that is to be enacted and which is to be harmonized with the strategies in the EU," Dragojlovic underscored. She added that two thirds of the accession negotiations with the EU were economic chapters, but "we spend more than 90 percent of the time talking about the political criteria."