Elaborating the Bill, the representative of the Ministry of Justice pointed out that its adoption was envisaged in the National Programme for Integration of Serbia with the European Union and the Government’s Action Plan aimed at gaining candidacy status more quickly and is one of the prerequisites for Serbia’s EU accession.

The Committee members pointed out that, considering its importance, the Bill should have been passed sooner, two years ago when the Law on Political Parties was passed. It was also said that in the drafting of the Bill the recommendations of the Council of Europe body dealing with the fight against corruption and supervision of the funding of political parties (GRECO) were disregarded.

In the debate, it was also said that all the political parties could have taken part in the drafting of the Bill, not only the parties of the ruling coalition, but they failed to use the opportunity.

By a majority of votes, the Committee members accepted the Bill on Financing Political Activities, in principle.

The sitting was chaired by Laszlo Varga, Committee Chairman.