On 31 August 2005, the Poverty Reduction Committee of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia held a session to present the Initiative to Return Property to Local Self-government Bodies. The initiative to adopt a law establishing property owned by local self-government bodies was put forward by the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities, and presented by the Conference’s Secretary General, Djordje Stanicic.

The session underlined that adopting a law on property owned by local self-government bodies would make for much more efficient management of property owned by municipalities and towns, which would also be able to use such property to foster economic growth. To quote from the Initiative, signed by officials of 139 Serbian towns and municipalities: “The adoption of such a law would accelerate the process of strengthening democratic institutions at the local level, increase economic capacities of towns and municipalities, and have a positive impact on the general processes of opening towards modern European and global integrations.”

A study on the economic consequences of transferring to state control property owned by local self-government bodies was presented by Kosovka Ognjenovic of the G17 Institute and Dr Zoran Njegovan of the Economics Institute. Dr Njegovan underlined that damage caused to municipal budgets by the fact that property is not owned by local self-government bodies amounted annually to 103 million euros. This figure did not include lost gain from missed investment, while it is estimated that 4,000 jobs failed to be created for the same reason in 2005.

Chairpersons of Velika Plana, Loznica, Zrenjanin and Vranje municipalities, as well as an official of the Novi Sad municipality, put forward their experiences and specific problems faced by local self-government bodies due to the non-existence of property owned by local self-government bodies.

The session was attended by officials of the USAID Serbian Local Government Reform Program and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Implementation Team of the Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Republic of Serbia.

The Chairperson of the Poverty Reduction Committee, Snezana Stojanovic-Plavsic, who chaired the session, stressed that the Committee would discuss specific proposals once the law entered Assembly procedure.