Serbia has 160 inapplicable strategies - minister

Serbia has 160 inapplicable strategies - minister

The role of the newly-established Secretariat is to direct government planning by analysing regulations and to give opinions about their impact, said Udovički, who warned that the process of establishing compliance could be "frustrating and a source of conflict between the Secretariat and the relevant authorities."

"In our country, no attention has been devoted so far to capability-building, nor has in the past there been talk of transferring those capabilities to national level," Udovički said.

In the present budget situation and without support from the international community, Serbia lacks expert capabilities, Udovički said.

Therefore, the process of establishing compliance must continue to take place in the earlier stages of adopting regulations, in which the Secretariat will give opinions, she said.

Serbia has launched an ambitious reform program aimed at adopting regulations that will be beneficial to the citizens, said James Cunningham, the commercial attache for south-eastern Europe at the US embassy in Romania.

He noted that Serbia adopts over 700 new regulations each year, but asked how the system can handle all those changes.

Keeping the adoption of new regulations transparent in order to keep the public up to date is the most important thing, but so is the analysis of the regulations prior to adoption, he said.

The US is ready to assist Serbia in the process of regulatory impact analysis, he added.

Alexander Hunt, head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the White House Office of Management and Budget, cited the example of the US, where around 100 out of every 5,000-7,000 regulations are subjected to the analysis procedure in view of the benefits they bring to society.

"My job is to ensure that all regulations are adopted after all information has been gathered in order to also enable the U.S. Congress to obtain adequate information on the impact of regulations on the work of the state administration," he explained.

The round table discussion was organized by the US embassy in Belgrade in collaboration with the Serbian Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-Government, the USAID Business Enabling Project and the American Chamber of Commerce.