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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Harmonising consumer protection system in Serbia with EU standards

Belgrade, 5 November 2007

Serbian Minister of Trade and Services Predrag Bubalo said that Serbia is actively working on constructing a system of consumer protection which will be in harmony with EU regulations. The EU is providing funding worth €2 million to support these efforts through the CARDS programme for strengthening the legal framework and expert training.

Author: Fonet

The regional conference on consumer protection was organised by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and development (BMZ) and the GTZ organisation as part of the Open Regional Fund for Southeast Europe, together with the Serbian Ministry of Trade and Services. Speaking at the opening, Bubalo said that consumer protection is the condition which all countries of the region aspiring to join the EU must fulfill.

According to Bubalo, the aim of the conference is to exchange experience, since consumer and competition protection is an issue which all countries in the region will have to deal with in the future. The EU also devoted a lot of attention to this question recently, and adopted a strategy for consumer protection for the period from 2007 to 2013.

The Minister recalled that in Serbia the law on consumer protection is being amended in order to harmonise it with EU legislation. He added that one of the most important novelties will be the upgrading of the consumer protection council into a national council, which will act as an advisory body to the Serbian president.

Bubalo stressed that the most important element in consumer protection is informing buyers on their rights and on defective products.

He said that the draft law on general product safety is now complete, and pointed to the fact that interests of the consumers are also being protected by the law on competition protection.

We have just begun to construct the consumer protection system. We have to make centers in several cities since it is not enough to have a centre only in Belgrade. Associations for consumer protection should be more active on the entire territory of Serbia, and activities for controlling safety and quality of products should be heightened, explained Bubalo.

The Minister concluded that the main task in establishing a system for consumer protection is building a partnership between organisations for consumer protection and the state.

Director of the German organisation for technical cooperation (GTZ) of the Open Regional Fund Thomas Meier stressed that above all it is essential to harmonise consumer protection with the Central European Free Trade Agreement. He added that product safety and informing buyers are two basic elements of consumer protection.

Representatives of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia will take part in the conference and experiences of consumers’ organisations in the EU and the region will be presented. These results will refer to the methodology of strategic planning, preparation of strategic plans and their contents, lobbying techniques and implementation of strategic plans.