Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Goran Vesic informed the participants of the meeting about the key innovations contained in the Bill amending and modifying the Law on Planning and Construction and the Bill amending the Building Legalisation Law.

Vesic spoke about the Bill amending and modifying the Law on Planning and Construction stressing that it achieves three important things: accelerates the procedure, increases its transparency, aligns the Law with European standards and encourages green construction.

The Minister emphasised that the proposed amendments to the Law achieve a number of goals, among them improvement of the electronic building permitting system i.e. the introduction of E-space, introduction of new elements of the "Green Agenda", with a special focus on the energy efficiency of new buildings which will have to have an energy passport.

Among the goals achieved by the proposed amendments to the Law are the increase in the accountability of persons authorised for construction documents issuance procedures, repeal of the Law on Conversion with Compensation for a Certain Category of Persons, re-introduction of the Spatial Planning and Urbanism Agency of the Republic of Serbia, previously abolished in 2014.

NALED Executive Director Violeta Jovanovic spoke on the third point of the agenda: Amendments to regulations governing planning and construction - Perspectives for the economy and local self-government.

In her presentation, she said that, in terms of the abolition of the conversion fee, NALED actively advocates this reform because its application unlocks numerous neglected locations, which are attractive for construction and investments. She pointed out that in the last 20 years the Republic of Serbia has collected only about 30 million euros in income on this basis. The negative consequences are also reflected in lost investments, jobs and tax revenues, said Jovanovic. She then spoke of the positive effects of the introduction of energy passports for all buildings, the purpose of which is to provide users with information about the energy characteristics of the building, which additionally contributes to raising the standards of urban construction in the country.

Speaking of the Bill amending the Building Legalisation Law, Jovanovic said that it is aimed primarily at citizens, with the clear goal of enabling owners and tenants in illegally constructed buildings to connect to electricity, water and heating. These changes are of a temporary nature, until the state resolves the issue of a large number of illegally constructed buildings, which NALED is certainly advocating for, with the aim of finding a permanent solution through mass legalisation, Executive Director Violeta Jovanovic stressed.

The attending MPs – members of the Economic Caucus, representatives of the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, NALED and interested organisations took part in the ensuing discussion on the aforementioned bills.

The meeting was chaired by MA Ninoslav Eric, Head of the National Assembly Economic Caucus.