Belgrade, Feb 20, 2004 - Head of the Belgrade office of the European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR) Adriano Martins and Serbian Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Andjelka Mihajlov signed on Friday an Agreement on a €2.7 million donation for the programme of building of environmental protection capacities. The project will be financed by the European Union through EAR.
The donation will be used for the preparation of a draft national strategy for environmental protection, realisation of the capacity building project in the Serbian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection and the Serbian Environmental Protection Agency and financing of its first activities, preparation of the National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP), and preparation and realisation of local environmental action plans.
Mihajlov told a press conference today that the donation will also be used for the preparation of text books for raising environmental awareness in schools, for carrying out a public campaign named Cleaner and Greener, preparation of a quick response system to ecological disasters and the improvement of the information technology system of the Ministry.
Adriano Martins said after the signing ceremony that the EU will spent the total of €14 million in the course of 2004 on the realisation of several projects whose aim is to create a cleaner and greener Serbia.
The signing was also attended by Secretary of the Serbian Environmental Protection Agency Branka Andric and head of the European Commission delegation to Serbia-Montenegro Geoffrey Barrett who said that the EU will continue to offer assistance to Serbia's environmental sector, adding that economic growth and protection of nature are closely related because no one wants to invest in dirty technologies.
