“The most meaningful FISR activity that I have participated in is the help provided for the document Economic Reform Program 2020–2022. This document is being drafted each year as the most important strategic document in the economic dialogue with the European Commission and EU Member States. Its aim is to prepare the Republic of Serbia, as a candidate country for the EU membership, to participate in the process of economic and fiscal surveillance of the EU Member States.

The Program contains a medium-term macroeconomic framework, as well as a fiscal framework that includes accompanying fiscal policy measures and a detailed overview of structural reforms, which are expected to increase competitiveness of domestic economy, create economic growth and development as well new jobs. The FISR project is providing us with support in calculation of the costs of planned structural reforms. We, together with the Center of Excellence in Finance (CEF), organized two workshops in Belgrade that covered this topic. Professor Mojmir Mrak, as expert on this project, has been of great help in the process.

Since the Working Group for drafting and implementing the ERP has a vast number of members, more than 90, it is always a challenge to interact with all of them. This project has provided additional platform for our cooperation, especially bearing in mind that the calculation of the costs of planned structural reforms is a novelty in this process and represents a real challenge. We will use prepared tables for drafting one part of the ERP 2020–2022, namely Tables 10a – Costing of structural reform measure and 10b – Financing of structural reform measure.

The first part of the ERP document (chapters I–III), which relates to the macrofinancial framework, is developed by the Ministry of Finance and the National Bank of Serbia and relies, for the most part, on the Fiscal Strategy. Work on the preparation of the content of the remaining chapters of this document is coordinated by the Ministry of Finance and the Public Policy Secretariat of the Republic of Serbia. The division that I am heading is in charge for coordinating the process with all the relevant stakeholders, and this is where a great project like FISR can help in providing assistance with the topics that we lack experience in.

In my personal opinion, the process of drafting the ERP in the Republic of Serbia is being enhanced each year and the coordination system is at a well-advanced level. We are very proud that every year the Republic of Serbia is praised as a leader in the region when economic coordination is concerned. Projects like FISR are quite helpful in contributing to these successes.”