Representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, the team of the PLAC III project and project experts discussed the revision of the draft Strategy for the transposition, implementation and enforcement of the Union acquis in Chapter 12 at a three-day seminar held in VršacThe seminar was held from December 5th to 7th, as a project activity of providing support to the competent ministry in updating the draft strategy with an action plan for its implementation. As part of the activities, the project support included the preparation of a legal gap analysis of the compliance of the existing draft of the Strategy with the new Union acquis, the preparation of recommendations for measures and activities for the new strategy and the preparation of the draft of the new Strategy with an action plan. A special part related to the development of a contingency plan for crisis management in case of an outbreak of classical swine fever.In March 2022, the Republic of Serbia prepared and submitted to the European Commission for comments the Second Draft Strategy with an Action Plan including Contingency plan for classical swine fever. According to the comments of the European Commission, the documents were assessed as satisfactory, but it was necessary to update the Strategy in view of recent changes in EU legislation.
At its opening the seminar was addressed by the team leader of the PLAC III project, Andrej Engelman, and the head of the Department for European Integration, Multilateral and Bilateral Cooperation in the Field of Agriculture, Milanka Davidović.
Project experts Ksenija Longo and Zorka Prljević presented the overview of the revised draft of the Strategy with an action plan, which includes the following: national legislation, status of transposition of EU legislation, development and administrative capacities, status of laboratories and financial resources. The food law, food safety rules, regulations on genetically modified organisms were then discussed. On the second day, the focus was on veterinary policy, the plan to combat classical swine fever, plant protection, harmful organisms and products for plant protection, which were discussed with the participants by experts Longo, Prljević and Jelena Vračar Filipović. On the last day of the seminar, the agenda included placing food on the market, animal feed, quality of seeds and planting material.
Employees of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management participated in the seminar.