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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Strengthening responsibility of political actors in election campaign

Belgrade, 3 October 2019

The Serbian government stated today that the Ministry of Finance, at the proposal of the Working Group for Cooperation with the OSCE and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, has made the Draft law on amendments to the Law on the financing of political activities.

The purpose of the proposed amendments is to enhance the accountability of political entities that are election participants, when it comes to the use of public resources, as well as to strengthen the powers of the Anti-Corruption Agency to punish the political entities that do not comply with the law during the election campaign.

The draft law is on the public debate as of today, and the text of the Draft law has been published on the website of the Ministry of Finance.

This is one in a series of activities that the Serbian government is undertaking to improve the election process. The essence of these changes is reflected in the ban on the use of funds from the budget of the Republic of Serbia, i.e. local budgets, including official premises, vehicles, websites and inventories of state, provincial and local authorities, public institutions and public companies for the purpose of election campaigns.

A political entity may use the premises and services of state bodies for an election campaign, if such premises and services are available on equal terms to all political entities, or participants in elections.

On the occasion of the forthcoming Fourth Conference of the People's Republic of China and 17 countries of Central and Eastern Europe on cooperation in the field of innovation, hosted by the Republic of Serbia, which will be held on 8-9 October in Belgrade, the Serbian government adopted the Conclusion on approving the text of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Cabinet of Minister without portfolio in charge of innovation and technological development, Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development and Netdragon websoft holdings limited from the People's Republic of China on cooperation in the field of development and promotion of open innovation platform.

For the first time in this format, Minister of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China Wang Zhiang will participate in the Ministerial Conference, and a large a number of ministers and government officials from Central and Eastern Europe also confirmed their participation.

The meeting will bring together the most relevant representatives of innovation ecosystems in the PRC and 17 Central and Eastern European countries, who will adopt the Belgrade Declaration, which establishes a common vision for innovation-based development of countries within the China CEECs 17 + 1 mechanism.

Along with the ministerial, an economic conference will be held, with participation from more than 200 companies, universities, institutions and investment funds from the PRC and CEECs.

The latest developments in innovation, digitisation, artificial intelligence, robotics, mobility, smart cities, agriculture, finance and other fields will be presented.

In view of the importance of the forthcoming event, the Serbian government also adopted the Conclusion on approval of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Cabinet of Minister without portfolio in charge of innovation and technological development and the Science and Technology Department of the Chinese province Zheijang on cooperation in the field of innovation.