The fifth component of the European Union’s IPA pre-accession fund, the IPARD fund (IPA Rural Development - IPARD), offers support to EU candidate countries in the process of adjustment of the agricultural sector and rural areas to European standards and the implementation of European legislation within the Common Agricultural Policy.
IPARD operative programme is drafted at the national level and submitted to the European Commission which adopts it within six months, provided that all relevant information is accessible.
The public hearing was attended by MPs, representatives of the ministries, local self-governments and civil society organisations.
The representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection, state secretaries Zeljko Radosevic and Dragan Mirkovic, State Secretary at the Ministry of Finance Milovan Filipovic, Deputy Director of the European Integration Office Ana Ilic and the President of the European Project Centre Andrija Pejovic briefed the participants on the measures and activities conducted, within their scope, to prepare the programme for the IPARD funds. The drafting of the programme started the beginning of the year, the programme was submitted to the European Commission in late August and would be presented to the IPA committee on 9 December. The preparatory stage has been completed and 2015 will a year of intensive activities relating to the promotion of the measures planned within the programme and enlargement of the administrative capacities for their implementation. The implementation of the pre-accession fund calls for an increase in staff at the Agrarian Payments Directorate which should in the near future be transferred from Sabac to Belgrade.
Closing the public hearing, European Integration Committee Chairman Aleksandar Senic said that the Committee will be formulating the conclusions of the hearing at the next sitting.