At the sitting held on 19 October, the Local Self-Government Committee considered the Bill on the Spatial Plan of the Republic of Serbia from 2010 to 2020, submitted by the Government of the Republic of Serbia.

The Bill was presented by representatives of the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning and the Spatial Planning Agency.

The Bill recognises Serbia’s spatial development problems and offers planned solutions from the level of local self-government to the state level. The drafting started from the principles, goals and planned solutions for the spatial plan with a special focus on decentralisation and transference of competence from the state to the local self-government level. The strengthening of the infrastructural network was especially important, particularly road, transport, railway and air networks which can have a regional character. According to plan, strategic projects should be drafted by 2014, as should the plan for their realisation by 2020.

In the long debate on the Bill the deputies were interested in the accessibility of territories in Serbia, Serbia’s infrastructural development, spa tourism and positioning of spas in the spatial plan and programme, competence of towns in the implementation of the spatial plan and the related modifications to the existing Local Self-Government Law, coordination between the institutions charged with the implementation of the spatial plan, significance of public property, unequal development between the local self-governments, Belgrade’s role, regulation of protected areas and national parks etc. The Committee members criticised the deadline the spatial plan refers to, as well as the deadlines for the drafting and realisation of strategic projects.

The sitting was chaired by Committee Chairman Jovan Palalic.