The economy is looking for effective laws - Why is Serbia only halfway through in passing the acts

An economically predictable and stable environment, without frequent and sudden changes, with consistent application of laws, efficient administration and good communication with state authorities, is what the economy is looking for. The latest Regulatory Index shows that Serbia is halfway there. What is interesting is that, in its research, NALED used secret buyers who checked the openness of the ministries to provide information important for the economy.

Ministries ambitiously plan legislative activities, but last year out of 346 planned laws, only a third was adopted, and 32 laws were amended.

- One of the results that I would like to emphasize is the adoption of laws by urgent procedure and the fact that in 2014 that share reached 80% of all adopted regulations. In the last few years, that practice has finally become an exception - Violeta Jovanović, executive director of NALED, points out.

A chronic problem of the Serbian regulatory environment is that it takes an average of 420 days to pass by-laws. Some are even a decade late. A rare example is the adoption of 16 by-laws on food safety before the deadline.

Last year, the ministries made up for the lack of by-laws with 600 interpretations.

- What we have understood is that all regulations are mostly implemented locally. The local government very rarely has the opportunity to participate directly in the legal solutions themselves, so there is certainly room for improvement - Bojana Tosic, director of the Public Policy Secretariat, assesses.

Ministries were rated excellent for communication by e-mail, and they also answered phone calls from unknown persons. Websites and communication via social networks received a slightly lower, but equally high rating. The parliamentary discussion received the lowest rating.

- The short period of time that the law was in the assembly shows that the public discussion, the discussion in the plenum, not to confuse the terms, generally did not last long enough for the average citizen to get acquainted with it - Dr. Boban Stojanovic, public policy researcher, points out.

For 51 laws, the Republican Secretariat for Public Policies assessed that they could have a significant impact on citizens and the economy, which is why it was necessary to conduct analyzes of monitoring the effects of regulations.

In 98% of cases, the ministries honored that, but only 40% were rated with the highest rating, whereas the rest partially satisfied or were incomplete.

- The project contributed to the upgrade of the e-portal, the public register of bidders, the development of the e-learning platform, the training of a number of contracting authorities and bidders, as well as judges and prosecutors. Special attention is paid to the introduction of ecological and social criteria - Anika Ben David, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Sweden, points out.

The average Serbian company allocates close to RSD 450,000 per year for just the ten most common procedures, which is a lot.