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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Samardzic-Markovic presents results of work in first 100 days

Belgrade, 3 September 2007

Serbian Minister of Youth and Sports Snezana Samardzic-Markovic said she is satisfied with the Ministry’s results in the first one hundred days of work and that most of the time was focused on control of institutional infrastructure of the Ministry and strategic planning.

Snezana Samardzic-Markovic

Samardzic-Markovic told a press conference that the Ministry is in charge of the country’s largest potentials, the two being youth and sports, adding that it was crucial to set up the grounds for future work.

We plan to carry out numerous projects; it is important that we managed to secure substantial funds for sports promotion programmes, said Samardzic-Markovic.

The Minister listed some of the most important activities of the Ministry so far, including engagement in drafting amendments to the Law on the prevention of violence at sports events and the launch of the campaign “Fight against violence in sports”, work on the national sports development strategy as well as activities directed to faster adoption of legislation in this field.

The public debate on the Bill on sports has been finished and the regulation is now in parliamentary procedure, she said adding that it was decided to regulate privatisation in sports in a separate law.

A four-year national sports strategy is now in the making, after which we want to make a strategy for the next ten years, Samardzic-Markovic announced.

She pointed out that privatisation in sports is a complex issue and therefore it is necessary to adopt a separate law on that.

According to her, a public debate on this law will be organised and it will start after local elections so as to avoid politicking.

Samardzic-Markovic said that work on the development of sports infrastructure in all parts of Serbia is ongoing.

We managed to secure part of the funds for the European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) in July in Belgrade as well as the 2009 Universiade, Samardzic-Markovic added.

Cooperation with non-governmental youth organisations has been established, she said noting that funds for programmes for the promotion of position of youth have been provided.

She added that the budget for the youth amounts to RSD 150 million this year while the total budget for the development of sports is RSD 1.66 billion.

Serbia has for the first time marked the Youth Day, we participated in the European youth campaign "Everyone is Different, Everyone is Equal", launched by the Council of Europe, and we hope that our activities will help improve the situation among the youth in the country and prevent youth drain, Samardzic-Markovic noted.