At the sitting held on 14 December, the members of the Committee on Science and Technological Development unanimously accepted the Bill on the Confirmation of the Framework Loan Agreement between the Council of Europe Development Bank and the Republic of Serbia, submitted by the Government.

State Secretary at the Ministry of Science and Technological Development Milos Nedeljkovic, Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister Goran Radosavljevic, as well as a representative of the Ministry of Finance briefed the Committee members on the Bill in detail.

State Secretary Nedeljkovic stressed that Serbia would greatly benefit from the loan funds it was to draw form the CE Development Bank considering that the funds would be used to finance the construction of flats for young scientists and procurement of scientific equipment. The details of the financial construction of the loan was elaborated by Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister Radosavljevic who staid that the loan was a continuation of the programme commenced by the realisation of the Science Development Strategy by 2015 totaling in 400 million EUR which would have been invested in Serbia’s science infrastructure by then. 200 million was secured by a loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) while the rest of the funds would be secured through co-financing. By the 35 million EUR loan, the CE Development Bank is financing science projects for the first time in its history. The loan portions were given under very favourable conditions – a 15 to 20 years maturity period, up to 5 years grace period, the interest rate to every portion of the loan would be between EURIBOR + 0.61% to the 15-year period; EURIBOR + 1.15% to the 20-year period or fixed at about 3.5 to 4.5%. The loan portion withdrawal is 5 years. The Ministry plans to use the funds for the construction of 130 flats for young scientists in New Belgrade and call a tender for the purpose straight after the ratification of the Bill. The second part of the loan funds would be used for the procurement of scientific equipment. The Ministry expects the investments to improve the position of the scientific community in Serbia, Radosavljevic concluded.

The representative of the Ministry of Finance informed the Committee members that the first portion of the loan should be withdrawn within one year and that all the procurements would be governed by EIB rules and the Public Procurement Law.

In the debate on the Bill, the Committee members stressed that the conditions of the loan were better than those of Serbia’s current loans and credits, and the fact that housing young scientists is the pre-condition to keeping them in the country. They wanted to know about obligations the scientists would have after being granted the use of the flats, the criteria for it, which university centres would be included in the construction beside Belgrade, how the candidate lists for the flats were drawn and criticised the manner the construction project would be accomplished, worried that there would be a disproportion between Belgrade and the rest of Serbia. The Committee members were also interested into the type of equipment to be bough by the loan and the issue of expenditure control.

Following the discussion the Committee members unanimously accepted the Bill on the Confirmation of the Framework Loan Agreement between the Council of Europe Development Bank and the Republic of Serbia.

The sitting was chaired by Srboljub Zivanovic, Committee Chairman.