At the sitting of the Youth and Sports Committee of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia held on 7 March 2006, the assistant head of the Sports Directorate of the Ministry of Education and Sports, Dragan Atanasov, presented the Directorate’s 2005 Activity Report and its Plan of Activities for 2006. Committee members unanimously adopted the Report and the Plan of Activities.

Nenad Djurdjevic, Advisor to the Minister of Education and Sports, said that the Ministry would ask the National Assembly to pass the Sports Bill under urgent procedure, as the financial situation in the field of sports was dire. The Bill has been taking this long to draft, Mr Djurdjevic added, because of the need to privatise sports clubs; the current Serbian Constitution, he went on to say, was a barrier to such privatisation for sports organisations wishing to retain their status of citizens’ associations.

Mr Djurdjevic underlined that the Privatisation Act could not apply to sports associations, that Serbia needed a speedy solution to this issue, and that a future Sports Act should not be expected to regulate the problem. He added that Serbia had about 5,000 sports facilities, most of which were state-owned.

The Illicit Substances Inspection Agency, established under the Act on the Prevention of Use of Illicit Substances in Sports, is to become operational by mid-2006; and will be dependent on funding specially granted by the Ministry of Finance, as no assets have been set aside in the 2006 budget for its operation, Djordjevic said. He added that the Agency was to focus on prevention, as well as that controlling illicit substances in sports was expensive.

The Committee resolved to co-operate with the Committee on Trade and Tourism to prepare amendments to the Public Ski Resorts Act.

The chairman of the Youth and Sports Committee, Jovan Todorovic, said that the Committee would meet at least once monthly due to the pressing issues in sports.