Negotiations with EU - chance to revive Serbian agriculture

BELGRADE - The negotiations with the EU in the field of agriculture is a chance to revive Serbian agriculture, and domestic producers will be in position to apply for pre-accession funds in 2015, the Belgrade Chamber of Commerce (PKS) said Tuesday.

Danilo Golubovic, State Secretary at the Serbian Ministry of Agriculture and head of the negotiating team in the agriculture talks, said that agriculture is the most comprehensive, most complex and most demanding area of Serbia’s negotiations with the EU.

The main objective of the legal and administrative adjustments is to increase the competitiveness of domestic production, Golubovic said at a conference on the EU accession negotiating process in the field of agriculture.

Agriculture, as noted, takes up as much as 30 percent of the total body of EU legislation, and the Serbian Ministry of Agriculture fully covers three chapters of the acquis and touches on 15 more chapters partly.

The Ministry of Agriculture will fully cover the talks on Chapters 11 (Agriculture and rural development), 12 (Food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy) and 13 (Fisheries), said Golubovic.

The secretary of state also stressed the importance of Serbia’s 2014-2024 Agriculture and Rural Development Strategy, whose draft is complete and which should be adopted after the new government and parliament are set up.

Freek Janmaat, head of the European Integration and Economic Section of the EU Delegation to Serbia, said that it is essential that that government draws up an IPARD program and establishes an effective system for the allocation of EU funds for rural development and establishment of better control of food products, especially dairy products.

Janmaat also...