The Agriculture Committee held its twenty-fifth session on 18 March. The session was chaired by Dragan Rafailovic, the Committee’s vice-chairman.

In addition to Committee members, the session was attended by officials of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, the Serbian Co-operatives Association, the Vojvodina Co-operatives Association, regional co-operatives associations, the Uzice Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the vice-chairman of the Agriculture Committee of the Zrenjanin Municipal Assembly, officials of the Independent Agriculture Trade Union of Serbia, officials of the Association of Agriculture Trade Unions of Serbia, as well as representatives of the Kotraza Agricultural Co-operative.

The session discussed a working draft of the Co-operatives Bill, designed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management; the Bill was described as a key piece of legislation that could prevent villages dying out. The Committee recommended the Ministry to propose, as soon as possible, a special law on co-operatives clearly delimiting existing ones from those that would be founded in the future.

The Committee also discussed a report submitted by the Serbian Co-operatives Association on the status and economic position of agricultural co-operatives. On behalf of the Serbian Co-operatives Association it was recommended to adopt a new law on co-operatives on the national level that would define the co-operative as a commercial entity with special status, privately owned by co-operative members who fulfil their economic, social and other needs engaging in co-operative activities. The adoption of a special strategy for developing co-operatives in 2005, to define the place and role of co-operatives in Serbia’s agricultural policy, was also proposed. Agricultural and economic policy measures should be used to encourage the development of co-operatives through more favourable loans, current and development subsidy programmes for specific activities. The proposal further states that it is necessary to guarantee co-operative property and ensure its protection through new constitutional and legislative acts, as well as to ensure the return of co-operative property that was forcibly converted into state or social property without any compensation. In connection to this, it is necessary to prevent the sale of such property in the process of privatisation, through application of existing provisions of the Co-operatives Act, prescribing the return of co-operative property to the co-operative sector. It was underlined that it is not logical for the Privatisation Agency to require the Serbian Co-operatives Association to issue certificates of the share of co-operatively owned capital in a company’s capital structure, and after obtaining such certificates allows the company to be sold. Certificates were requested for 130 companies, of which 100 did have co-operatively owned capital, but the companies were for the most part sold.