European partnership of the Office for European Affairs and municipalities of Ruma and Žabalj

Goran Vuković, President of Ruma Municipality, and Milorad Stepanov, President of the Municipal Assembly of Žabalj, have signed a Cooperation Agreement on capacity building, with reference to cross-border cooperation and attraction of foreign direct investment, with the Office for European Affairs.

Milorad Stepanov, President of the Municipal Assembly of Žabalj, said that the municipality had practically not had a larger development project to have been financed through EU pre-accession funds over the last five years, thus cooperation with the Office for European Affairs was of great importance to the creation of new development opportunities for all our citizens. Likewise, the priority of the municipality was support to agriculture, food industry, rural development and tourism in the river basin of the Tisa and Jegrička. Goran Vuković, President of Ruma Municipality, said he wanted the municipality to start applying for EU pre-accession funds in cooperation with Office for European Affairs, whereby the strategic priority was the completion of the industrial zone as an important logistics centre only 15 kilometres away from the airport. “Partnership with the Office for European Affairs is important for Ruma because this provincial institution is an important engine of Europeisation and regional cooperation”, said Vuković.

Signing the Agreement, both municipalities have accepted the responsibility to nominate their representatives or form development departments to be a local development program basis at the earliest possible time.