The European Union is providing €1.5 million in incentive grants for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Serbia as an addition to the €10 million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The loan will be provided through OTP Leasing Srbija and aims to support the competitiveness of the country’s SMEs.
The financing is being provided under the EBRD’s SME Competitiveness Programme, through which local companies can access well-structured finance, including incentive grants worth up to 15% of their loan amount. The aim of the programme is to support Serbian SMEs in upgrading their businesses to EU standards in areas such as environmental protection, worker safety and product quality. Participating small businesses will also be offered technical assistance to help prepare and implement their investments. The grants and technical assistance are being financed by the EU through the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) and in close coordination with Serbia’sMinistry of Economy.
Prime Minister Ana Brnabić and the European Union Ambassador to the Republic of Serbia Emanuele Giaufret have presented a new initiative worth €8 million to encourage “green” transformation of the economy and society in Serbia. The project titled “EU for the Green Agenda in Serbia – Get Started, Take Action, Scale Up“ will support Serbia to implement the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans.
Ambassador Giaufret noted that Serbia adopted the Green Agenda Declaration in October 2020 and committed to implementing it through the Regional Action Plan adopted in Brdo, Slovenia, in October 2021. “We will help Serbia improve strategies and policies, take concrete actions and increase investments for green transformation, especially in the areas of decarbonisation (reducing dependence on fossil fuels); reducing pollution of air, water and land; the circular economy; agriculture and food production, as well as biodiversity protection. This is great news and I am happy to be able to show our real commitment and engagement,” added Ambassador Giaufret.
This new two-year initiative from the EU and the United Nations Development Programme is being implemented in cooperation with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and the European Investment Bank. The initiative will help Serbia to achieve the Paris Agreement goals and will support the alignment of Serbia’s regulatory framework with the EU acquis (body of EU law) in all the areas of the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans.
The European Commission has completed EU Solidarity Fund (EUSF) assistance payments to 19 countries for a total amount of almost€385.5 million to tackle the coronavirus health emergency. This comes in addition to €132.7 million paid in 2020 to the Member States who requested an EUSF advance payment. 17 Member States had requested the EUSF support, as had Albania, Montenegro and Serbia as candidate countries.
Albania and Montenegro received their financial support at the end of 2021, while for Serbia the signature of the delegation agreement is ongoing, with the EUSF financial assistance expected to be paid out soon after the agreement is signed.
Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, Olivér Várhelyi, said, “Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been standing by our partners in the Western Balkans. I am pleased that Albania, Montenegro and Serbia have been able to take advantage of the EUSF support. This is yet another demonstration of the EU’s commitment to supporting the region in the fight against the coronavirus, where possible with access to the same assistance mechanisms as for our Member States.”
EUSF COVID-19 health emergency support finances medical assistance, the purchase and administration of vaccines, personal protective equipment and medical devices, costs of healthcare, laboratory analyses, prevention measures, and monitoring and control of the spread of the disease.
An NGO from Sarajevo produces exciting works of art using waste bottle caps.
A beautiful carpet is on prominent display in the Sarajevo suburb of Ciglane. There’s something different about this so-called ‘Čepoćilim’ though: it is made of 25,000 plastic bottle tops. Its name translates as ‘cap carpet’ and it was designed and produced as part of a project by the Green Art Association, an NGO from Sarajevo, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Alma Hrasnica Dervišević, the President of the association, explains that it all started ten years ago when she came up with the idea of producing art using bottle tops as part of activities for the European Week for Waste Reduction in Sarajevo. “Back then this was a quite ambitious project for us, as we did not know if people would appreciate this initiative and what kind of feedback we would get,” says Alma.
The initial challenge was to collect bottle tops. Alma set up a bottle top collection point and contacted schools, companies and other institutions to ask if they would be willing to contribute to this project by collecting and delivering discarded plastic bottle tops. “To my surprise, the response was very positive and in a short time we managed to collect a considerable amount of bottle caps, and this is how the Čepoćilim trend started,” says Alma.
“Čepoćilim is the perfect combination of art, cultural heritage and ecology. The point of the project is to raise awareness of the accumulation of waste packaging and I believe that we have shown that there is a way to give this waste a new reuse value.”
Making one bottle top carpet a year
Following the success and appreciation of the first bottle top carpet, Alma and colleagues at the Green Art Association decided to turn this into an annual activity where they design and produce at least one carpet made of plastic bottle caps. For design, they decided to continue to use the traditional Bosnian carpet as this would be an artistic but also touristic attraction, contributing to the promotion of cultural heritage.
“Čepoćilim is the perfect combination of art, cultural heritage and ecology. The point of the project is to raise awareness of the accumulation of waste packaging and I believe that we have shown that there is a way to give this waste a new reuse value,” says Alma.
By involving young people, Alma believes that they managed to raise significant awareness among groups who can contribute to future environmental protection through waste reduction and management.
Recently, Green Art Association received support from the EU-funded ReLOaD (Regional Programme on Local Democracy) programme. The programme helped them in their latest project designing and producing benches from bottle tops, with a visual design drawing on traditional Bosnian carpets. In this latest activity they involved children from Vladislav Skarić primary school, Mjedenica school for children with learning difficulties and Bjelave orphanage. As part of the project, they conducted 30 eco-art workshops on turning waste into eco-art. In these workshops they used materials such as plastic bottles and tins. In their final project, they used around 15,000 bottle tops to produce the benches.
“Thanks to this project we were able to involve more children and young people in our activity and raise awareness among them about ecological issues and for this we are very grateful to the ReLOaD programme and the EU.”
About the programme
The Regional Programme for Local Democracy in the Western Balkans (ReLOaD) is funded by the European Union and implemented by the United National Development Programme. ReLOaD is now in its second phase, lasting until 2024.
The project created an environment in which children and young people were able both to develop cultural initiatives that were ecological and to socialise through artistic activities. “Thanks to this project we were able to involve more children and young people in our activity and raise awareness among them about ecological issues and for this we are very grateful to the ReLOaD programme and EU,” says Alma.
The bottle top bench is now in the very centre of Sarajevo in Gimnazijska Street, surrounded by primary and high schools. For Alma it is a source of pride and all the children who worked on it, as well as their classmates, can see it every day and be reminded of the importance of waste reduction and management.
Our YEA of December 2021, Vojdan Uzunov, comes from North Macedonia, and he is a student of Law. Although traveling and reading have always been his passions, during his time as a YEA Vojdan has thrived into an outspoken activist and a great speaker on topics that are relevant for the young people in the region. On this note, Vojdan is also active at his university as a member of a group that advocates for the rights of marginalized groups in North Macedonia. Vojdan is also an environmentalist, he loves to walk or cycle as much as possible while helping people understand that cars should only be used as a necessity. We cannot wait for him to jump into the shoes of a young trainer for Media Literacy – helping his peers understand how media works and how to use critical thinking for better understanding.
Novi Sad has officially become one of the three European Capitals of Culture for 2022, along with Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg and Kaunas, Lithuania. It is the first time a city from Serbia has been given this title.
“Novi Sad is of great importance both for Serbian national identity and for Europe,” said the Ambassador of the European Union to Serbia, Emanuele Giaufret, at the proclamation ceremony, which was held at the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad on 13 January.
The year of the European Capital of Culture officially began at the symbolic time of 20.22 with an event titled “Zeniteum :: 2022” directed by Dragan Živadinov. The celebration focused on the great names of Serbian science through art, Mileva Marić Einstein and Milutin Milanković. The opening night was also marked by a large exhibition on “Time and Universe” in the hall of Studio M, as well as concerts at several locations in the city.
Novi Sad will present itself as a 2022 European Capital of Culture with more than 1,500 cultural events and 4,000 local, national and international artists in a total of eight programme areas. Within these, more than 1,700 European and world artists from over 45 countries will tell the story of the city known as the Serbian Athens, through the perspective of common European values, but also shared challenges.
The programme narrative of the “Novi Sad – European Capital of Culture” project stems from the slogan “For new bridges,” and the idea of building new bridges of cooperation and exchange between artists and organisations from Novi Sad and Serbia with the wider European cultural scene.
2022 has been designated the European Year of Youth. This means increasing efforts to include youth priorities and concerns in relevant EU policy areas and at every level of EU decision making with the aim of re-establishing a positive outlook for young people, who have been hard hit by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Activities that will be organised as part of this year include conferences, initiatives promoting youth participation in policymaking, awareness-raising campaigns on a more inclusive, green and digital EU, and studies and research on the situation in which young people find themselves. The European Year of Youth goes hand in hand with NextGenerationEU, which reopens perspectives for young people, including quality jobs and education and training opportunities for the Europe of the future, and supports young people’s participation in society.
The Year of Youth will seek synergies and complementarity with other EU programmes targeting youth across the policy spectrum – from rural development programmes focused on young farmers to research and innovation programmes, and from cohesion to climate change actions – including EU programmes with international outreach or of a transnational nature.
Besides Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps, with budgets for the current financial period of €28 billion and 1€ billion respectively, the EU’s Youth Guarantee and Youth Employment Initiative are creating more opportunities for young people. Meanwhile, a new programme called ALMA will also be launched in 2022 to support cross-border professional mobility for disadvantaged young people.
The full programme of activities and further information will be available on the Youth Portal. The scope of activities will cover issues that mostly affect young people, following the priorities highlighted in the Youth Goals, such as equality and inclusion, sustainability, mental health and well-being, and quality employment. They will also involve young people beyond the EU.
The EU-supported Serbian film Impure Blood – Sin of Ancestors will be available on the Netflix platform from this month. This is considered a huge recognition for Serbian cinematography and it opens up opportunities for its visibility at a global level. The news that the film will be shown on Netflix has aroused great interest from both experts and the general public in Serbia.
The creation of the film was supported by the Creative Europe programme for the development of film art. The production company received €160,000 in European funds as financial support for the development and realisation of four projects, including this film. As part of their commitment to promoting Serbian cultural heritage, the Delegation of the European Union to Serbia also supported the film’s promotional campaign.
“It is a great source of pride that the first Serbian movie available on Netflix has been supported by the European Union. The EU is a strong promoter of culture and cultural diversity, and we want to make Serbian culture more present and recognised across Europe and the world.
“From 2014 to 2020, 141 Serbian artists and creative industries benefited from grants from the EU programme Creative Europe, and I am very glad that Serbia has recently become part of the new seven-year cycle of the EU programme,” said Emanuele Giaufret, EU Ambassador to Serbia.
The European Commission has adopted Creative Europe‘s 2022 work programme, meaning that the relevant calls for proposals can now be launched. With a budget of around €385 million, nearly €100 million more than in 2021, Creative Europe is strengthening its support to creative and cultural partners, taking due account of the challenges resulting from the COVID-19 crisis and growing global competition.
Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Mariya Gabriel, said “The cultural and creative sectors are the soul of European society and we know how resilient the creative and cultural sectors have been in these past two years. In 2022, Creative Europe will benefit from its biggest budget ever. The EU stands by their side to support their recovery, their creative process and their innovation potential. We invite artists, creators and culture professionals to explore and benefit from the many funding opportunities provided by Creative Europe.”
The culture strand of the programme will include new calls and initiatives for the music, cultural heritage, performing arts and literature sectors, the MEDIA strand focuses on audio-visual and several innovations introduced in 2022, and the cross-sectoral strand will increase funding for the Creative Innovation Lab for joint-innovation projects involving several creative sectors, contributing also to the New European Bauhaus. It will also widen support to the news media through additional measures to nurture media freedom.
The cultural and creative sectors are encouraged to use CulturEU, the recently launched online guide to all EU funding available to them. The interactive website gathers a total of 75 funding opportunities from 21 different EU programmes, from Creative Europe and Horizon Europe to structural funds and InvestEU.
The EU supports outdoor adventure through the physical and digital marking of mountain routes.
The mountainous region of Peja/ Peć in western Kosovo is focused on transcending mass tourism by offering personalised experiences that blend local traditions with the rugged terrain. The region’s potential for tourism was identified years ago with investments taking place both in infrastructure and in human capital. Now there are visitors here who spend their time trekking, hiking, and biking.
Nature lovers choose to spend time in the Albanian Alps, whose name translates from local languages as the ‘Accursed Mountains’ – the mountain range shared between Kosovo, Montenegro, and Albania. A group of enthusiasts, some of whom have made this their livelihood, are proud to share their local riches with the rest of the world and are now reaping the rewards of this industry.
“This project is hands-down the most successful intervention implemented on these mountain ranges in the last 20 years.”
Where only the shepherds used to walk
The local mountaineering association, Gjeravica, found a partner in the European Union-funded cross-border project between Kosovo and Montenegro investing in marking existing and new trails for hiking and biking. “This project is hands-down the most successful intervention implemented on these mountain ranges in the last 20 years,” says Raif Gjikolli from Gjeravica. The association was involved in all stages of the project, advising on the proposed routes and marking them out. “We take pride in selecting the best routes that only the locals used to walk – such as the one from the city centre, where the altitude is at 550m, through pastures and past shepherds huts in mountain ranges at 1,800m altitude,” says Gjikolli, confirming the marking to be of international standard.
The routes go through picturesque parts of protected areas in both Kosovo and Montenegro. Outdoor enthusiasts can spend days criss-crossing borders, and intersecting with better-known regional mountain routes such as the Peaks of Balkans or the Via Dinarica.
“The markings of the trails, and the accompanying activities, are in line with the local development plans and strategies to develop tourism in the region.”
About the project
The Accursed Mountains – Exquisite Outdoor Destination project was created with the aim of strengthening the cross-border zone between Kosovo and Montenegro as an outdoor destination. A network of approximately 334 km of hiking and cycling trails has been marked and offers connections between Kosovo and Montenegro. The entire border region is equipped with rest areas, viewpoints, and bicycle parking. This EU-funded project will stimulate economic development and create new employment opportunities.
Information brought together in one place
The marked trails cross borders but they keep to the natural flow of the massifs, and they guide visitors through outstanding views of the Accursed Mountains. The implementing organisations have received positive feedback from tour guides operating in the area where hundreds of markings have been applied alongside the 334 kilometres of hiking and biking routes.
Sokol Luta from Regional Development Agency – West, the implementing partner on the Kosovan side, explains that with EU funds 25 information boards have been installed, sources of water have been identified, and signposts now point the way to panoramic views. “The markings of the trails, and the accompanying activities, are in line with the local development plans and strategies to develop tourism in the region,” says Luta.
He adds that there was great cooperation between stakeholders on both sides of the border to improve the quality of the Accursed Mountains tourism offer, increase visibility, and ultimately present the cross-border area as a single attractive outdoor destination. As an example, the implementing organisations have collected and listed in one place – both as a website and a smart-phone app – all service providers in accommodation, gastronomy, and tour services. Alongside the digitalised trail maps, visitors are given the option to choose between organised tours, or independently discover the area.
