J. Joksimović: Project – important step within Cluster 4

January 18 2022 | Belgrade

J. Joksimović: Project – important step within Cluster 4

Minister of European Integration Jadranka Joksimović has stated today that the Project ‘EU for Green Agenda in Serbia’ is not the beginning of the work on the Green Agenda and green development in Serbia, but that it is an important step within Cluster 4 in the negotiations with the EU and in meeting the interim benchmarks from that cluster related to the environmental protection, climate change and sustainable development.

At the conference on the launch of the Project, Joksimović has assessed that it is good that, simultaneously with improving the rule of law, Serbia is working on the main pillar of the EU development policy at the moment – the Green Agenda and green development.

Joksimović has stressed that the Green Agenda and green development can also be achieved through the goals of sustainable development which in Serbia are implemented through the process of European integration.

According to Joksimović, the beneficiaries of the Project are the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, but the final beneficiaries are the institutions that implement the policies of environmental protection and climate change in Serbia, both at the national and local level.

At the local level, this means that local self-government units, public companies, private undertakings, non-governmental organisations and scientific and research institutions can apply.

“It is important that local self-government units inform the public and all stakeholders at the local level; visibility is very important, and everyone should follow the calls for application because those are the funds that go through ministries to the local level”, explained the Minister.

According to her, it is important that everyone becomes interested and has the possibility to make an impact with their ideas in the area of decarbonisation, energy efficiency, circular economy, reduction of environmental pollution, with the focus on air quality, and sustainable agricultural production .

The Minister has said that the project was programmed in 2020, and that in April 2020, she signed a part of an important IPA 2020 package in the amount of EUR 80 million, of which EUR 8 million was intended for this project.

“We knew then, as we had known years before, that by programming projects related to achieving the goals of the Green Agenda in cooperation and strategic and financial partnership with the EU, we will achieve the best goals and what citizens expect, what has become a burning topic not only in Serbia but also across the globe, particularly in the EU, and that is environment, climate change, energy efficiency, biodiversity protection, sustainable agricultural production, green industry and circular economy”, said Joksimović.

She has added that Serbia does not want to stand on the margins of the changes that have begun in the world and the EU, but that it wants to bravely enter the current of those changes. In addition, the Minister believes that Serbia has already done that and that it follows the goals of the Green Agenda set by the EU.

Source: Tanjug