The fourth meeting of the Joint Consultative Committee of the European Committee of the Regions and Serbia

The fourth meeting of the Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) and Serbia took place in Brussels on 4 May 2018, during the Enlargement Day conference.

Ognjen Bjelić, Provincial Secretary for Regional Development, Interregional Cooperation and Local Self-Government, JCC member on behalf of AP Vojvodina, attended the two-day session and had several meetings during his visit to Brussels.

During the first day, the Provincial Secretary Bjelić met with Gordana Popović PhD, representative of the European Research Council (ERC), with whom he discussed the enhancement of cooperation in the field of science and research. The European Research Council is an important agency of the European Commission creating and funding a number of scientific initiatives, especially under Horizon 2020. In order to involve more stakeholders from the AP Vojvodina, Secretary Bjelić and Popović PhD agreed to organize an info day in Novi Sad, when the representatives of the European Commission would inform in detail the participants about the possibilities that Serbian universities, i.e. faculties of natural and social sciences, and other institutes could have via the ERC.

The visit of the ERC highest-level delegationl, led by its president Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon was announced to take place in September when a number of meetings were planned to take place in Novi Sad.

During the JCC meeting, held at the CoR, the conclusions of the previous meeting having taken place in Novi Sad on 24 November 2017 were adopted. The JCC members presented the achieved results, especially in the field of culture and cultural heritage, which was the topic of the discussion of the Brussels meeting. Related to that, the possibility of further development of economy and tourism through the promotion of culture and its heritage in local self-governments was emphasized. The participants were also addressed by Mr. Nenad Milenković, President of the Municipality of Sremski Karlovci, member of the delegation in Brussels.

On the last day of the session, the participants were welcomed by Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy & Enlargement Negotiations, as well as by Karl-Heinz Lambertz, CoR’s President.