Minister of Human and Minority Rights, Public Administration and Local Self-Government Milan Markovic and his counterparts from Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia signed a Declaration on regional cooperation in the process to modernise public administration in Belgrade today.

Speaking at a conference “Services, skills and capacity – key challenges in building a modern public administration in Europe,” Markovic underlined that by signing this document, Serbia made a commitment to cooperation that will ensure better lives of citizens in the future.

The Minister stressed that modernisation of public administration aims at building adequate administrative capacity to harmonise national legislation with EU law.

Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Bozidar also attended the signing, voicing his belief that countries that signed the Declaration have the capacity to ensure speedy progress in this remit.

Djelic said that he will endorse all regional initiatives for the preservation and strengthening of the administrative capacity – an important element of EU accession.

The Declaration was signed by Albanian Deputy Minister of the Interior Ferdinand Poni, Macedonian Minister of Information Society and Administration Ivo Ivanovski, Montenegrin Minister of the Interior Ivan Brajovic, Slovenian Ambassador to Belgrade Franc But and, on behalf of Serbia, Minister of Human and Minority Rights, Public Administration and Local Self-Government Milan Markovic.

Serbia needs efficient administration, says Tadic
Serbian President Boris Tadic said Friday that public administration in Serbia needs to be protected from political influences, but that the law also needs to prevent monopolization of jobs in the state administration.

Addressing the participants of a regional conference dubbed "Services, skills and capacity – challenges in building a modern public administration in Europe," Tadic pointed out the main task of public administration should be to answer how something can be done, and not to pose obstacles in people's way.

Public administration is one of the pillars of modern society and the state's credibility with citizens depends on it, he stressed at the event held at the National Bank of Serbia.

"We must have a politically neutral, professional public administration, but this does not mean its employees should be overprotected when it comes to their jobs, so that monopolization does not occur. We need to build competitiveness and an atmosphere in which people in public administration are required to put in more effort and show results," Tadic said.

A better state administration is the best way for the state to restore the trust of the people in the times of the economic crisis, according to Tadic.

Countries in South East Europe can help each other in the process of public administration reform, because this raises the credibility of the entire region, Tadic said.

"Administration should be turned into a factor of development instead of an impediment," Tadic stressed.

"It is not possible to reform a country without reforming public administration, because public administration is the bloodstream of a country," Tadic explained.

The Serbian president concluded that, under the contemporary political and economic circumstances, the European Commission needs to find its own solutions for the problems in the EU, and countries in the region must do their part to continue reform processes and improve the working of their societies.