Milos Jankovic, acting Assistant Minister of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs, briefly presented the Bill on Financial Support to Families with Children. He said that the Bill preserves the existing rights, changes the way maternity, childcare sick leave and special childcare allowance is calculated and paid, and introduces new compensations. The Bill introduces new rights concerning the birth of children and childcare expanding the scope to include women who had no rights of this kind before – self-employed women, farmers and members of agricultural households, employed under occasional service and temporary service contracts, authorship contracts, as well as unemployed women and women who did not have the right to unemployment benefits. Foreign nationals registered in Serbia and if their child is born in Serbia also have the right to parental allowance, or the father does if the mother is not registered in Serbia. The allowance for the first child is raised from 39,000 to 100,000 RSD, while the allowance for succeeding children remains the same. Since the VAT reimbursement for baby equipment was rescinded, the parental allowance will be accompanied by 5,000 RSD in one-time assistance, said Jankovic. The Bill on Financial Support to Families with Children was harmonized with EU regulations i.e. chapters 2 and 19.
On the behalf of the Ministry of Finance, the Bill amending and modifying the Value Added Tax Law was presented by Vesna Sandic who said that the objective of the Bill was to adjust the VAT Law to European Directive 112 of 2006 and some of its provisions are expected to come into force in January 2019.

Bojan Kijanovic of the Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering presented the Bill on Preventing Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism and the Bill amending and modifying Law on Restrictions on Disposal of Property with the Aim of Preventing Terrorism. He said that the Republic of Serbia is part of the global system for the prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism and is one of 196 states implementing the globally accepted standards in the field.

The Bill on Preventing Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism amends the definition and ascertainment of real owner, enhances the measures applied to politically prominent figures, and introduces the identification of both sender and receiver and mediator, if any, in electronic money transfers. When passed, the law would be implemented by notaries public, and it would better specify risk analysis and establishment whether any of the parties comes from offshore destinations. The Bill also amends the penal policy and the National Bank of Serbia, which is in charge of oversight, can pronounce measures in line with the Law on Banks, said Kijanovic.

The Bill amending and modifying Law on Restrictions on Disposal of Property with the Aim of Preventing Terrorism aims to adjust the national to the UNSC list of countries and terrorist organizations according to which property disposal is restricted to persons listed, said Kijanovic. The lists would be used automatically and the Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering would keep the financial and non-financial sector informed. The Government will also be given the option to, if a Serbian national is listed as a person of interest, inform the foreign country where they have property to restrict their disposal of it. The Government also gets two new authorities – it can propose that the UNSC include on its list a person registered on Serbia’s list as a member of a terrorist organization or, if it was proved that the person is not a member of a terrorist organization or has died that it be struck off it.

Following a short debate the Committee members accepted all four bills in principle.

The sitting was chaired by Committee Deputy Chairperson Elvira Kovacs, and attended by the following Committee members and deputy members: Dr Muamer Bacevac, Olivera Pesic, Zarko Micin, Aleksandar Stevanovic, Bojan Torbica, Vesna Markovic, MA Dejan Radenkovic and Milimir Vujadinovic.