The purpose of the Law on the Planning System of the Republic of Serbia is to establish a suitable, efficient, transparent, coordinated, and realistic system of planning, which includes all the key aspects of the social and economic development policy and the regional and spatial development, paired with an optimal usage of funds, ensured environment protection, and sustainable growth and development of the Republic of Serbia, as well as the running of the process of accession to the European Union. Through adoption of the Law numerous problems that now exist in the system of planning and public policy management will be resolved, in particular the issue of public policy coordination.
The set of regulations on the planning system was developed in the course of 2015 and 2016. During this period there were broad consultations with interested parties on the set of regulations through which the planning system would be established on the republic, provincial, and local levels in the Republic of Serbia.
During this period texts of the Draft Law on the Planning System of the Republic of Serbia, the Regulation on the Methodology of Public Policy Management, Policy and Regulatory Impact Assessment, and Content of Individual Public Policy Documents, and the Regulation on the Methodology of Medium-Term Planning were improved qualitatively in line with the comments and suggestions offered by state administration bodies, institutions of the ‘Center of Government’, other state administration organs, local self-government, the European Commission, the SIGMA, citizens, representatives of the private, non-governmental and academic sectors, and other interested parties.
During the period of development of these drafts of regulations, the drafts were published on the webpage of the Public Policy Secretariat and thus made available for commenting. In addition, by the end of the 4th quarter 2016 the formal public debate procedure for the Draft Law on the Planning System of the Republic of Serbia and accompanying regulations started, in keeping with Article 41 of the Government Rules of Procedure.
The public debate started on 30 December 2016 and ended on 20 January 2017. During the debate proposals, suggestions and comments were offered by representatives of more than 170 state administration bodies, provincial institutions, independent regulatory bodies, local self-government units, citizens, economic entities, civil society organizations, experts in the field, representatives of the academia, and other interested parties.
Closing events of the public debate were held on 11 January 2017 and 16 January 2017 in Belgrade, in the premises of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, with which the stage of consultations on the Draft Law on the Planning System of the Republic of Serbia and accompanying regulations ended.
At these two events participants had the opportunity to learn about the content of the Draft Law on the Planning System of the Republic of Serbia, after which there was also a discussion on the proposed solutions. A large number of public debate participants have offered their remarks, proposals, and suggestions both during these two events and through the e-mail.
Participants in the public debate stressed that the proposed Draft Law is essential as it brings order into the planning system of the Republic of Serbia with the final aim of establishing coordination and ensuring continuity in the development, adoption, implementation, and the monitoring of implementation of public policy documents of the Republic of Serbia. Questions posed by participants for the most part related to the necessity for clarifying hierarchical relations among public policy documents, explication of the terminology, and a potential need for postponing the start of implementation of the Law on the Planning System of the Republic of Serbia.
All the legitimate suggestions, remarks, and proposals were built into the text of the Draft Law on the Planning System of the Republic of Serbia. On the other hand, some suggestions, remarks, and proposals were not built into the Draft Law as they were too vague and general and, therefore, inappropriate for integration into the text of the Draft Law on the Planning System.
Further in the text all the suggestions regarding the text of the Draft Law that were collected during the public debate are presented, as well as explanations as to which of the received suggestions were integrated into the text of the Draft Law and which not, and for what reasons.