Keys to ten newly-built Regional Housing Programme (RHP) apartments were delivered to refugee families in Kraljevo, Serbia. To date, more than 6,700 RHP homes have been allocated to beneficiaries across Serbia, one of the four partner countries of the RHP.

In addition to the beneficiaries themselves, attendees at the ceremony for the delivery of keys included Svetlana Velimirović, Deputy Commissioner for Refugees and Migration of the Republic of Serbia; Predrag Terzić, Mayor of Kraljevo; Urs Schmid, Ambassador of Switzerland in Serbia; Mirjana Maksimović, representing the Delegation of the European Union in Serbia, and Dušan Kovačević, Head of the Public Sector Projects Implementation Unit Ltd.

The EU’s financial support for peace, reconciliation, and good neighbourly relations in Serbia has reached more than €300 million. The assistance is aimed at strengthening regional cooperation and stability and tackling pending bilateral issues and the legacies of the past. The EU has secured €74 million to support housing and employment of the most vulnerable refugee families and internally displaced persons. The goal of a regional programme implemented in this sector is to improve the lives of 74,000 people, or around 27,000 families, from the territory of the former Yugoslavia. The overall budget is estimated at approximately €584 million for a five-year period.