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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Social inclusion high on Serbia’s agenda in process of European integration

Belgrade, 29 March 2011

Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Bozidar Djelic and State Secretary of Ministry of Labour and Social Policy Zoran Martinovic opened today the conference "Coordination of social policy in the context of Europe 2020 Strategy", whose aim is to highlight the role of the social dimension in the EU accession process.

Presenting “The First national report on social inclusion and poverty reduction”, adopted by the government on 17 March this year, Djelic underlined that the process of social inclusion is high on Serbia’s agenda in the process of European integration.

By adopting this report the government has shown that actively harmonises its priorities with the priorities of EU member states, the Deputy Prime Minister said.

The next important step upon receiving the EU candidate status will be the elaboration of a joint memorandum on social inclusion, which is a document that will represent Serbia’s plan for improvement of the process of social inclusion and poverty reduction.

An important priority of Serbia is a strong partnership of all actors which will contribute to the improvement of measures from the field of education, social care, housing, employment and other areas related to excluded and poor citizens, especially in rural and underdeveloped parts of the country, Djelic explained.

In 2010 the EU adopted a strategy - Europe 2020 which shows Europe’s willingness to strive for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.

The EU’s contribution to addressing poverty and social exclusion through the strategy Europe 2020 is the European platform for the fight against poverty and social exclusion, which defines the framework of activities for achieving the European goal of reducing poverty and social exclusion by at least 20 million people by 2020.

The conference was organised by the Cabinet of the Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration and the Team for social inclusion and poverty reduction in cooperation with the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and the inclusion of the European Commission and with the support of the Directorate-General for Enlargement (TAIEX Department).

Speakers at the event were Director of the Directorate for Analysis, Assessment and Foreign Relations Georg Fischer, advisor for social inclusion in the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and the inclusion Walter Wolf, representative of the Centre for Liberal-Democratic Studies Gordana Matkovic, Chairman of the Standing Conference of Cities and Municipalities and Mayor of Paracin Sasa Paunovic and manager of the Team for social inclusion and poverty reduction Zarko Sunderic.

The conference was attended by numerous representatives of ministries, local authorities, civil society and scientific research institutions and organisations, reads the statement by the Deputy Prime Minister’s Cabinet.