The European Union will continue helping Serbia to harmonize its Law on Personal Data Protection with European regulations in the area and the Stabilization and Association Agreement, Head of the EU Delegation in Belgrade Vincent Degert said Friday.

The EU will support the office of the commissioner for information of public importance and personal data protection, with a view to forming a strong monitoring body which will be able to force ministers to obey the Law on Personal Data Protection, Degert said at a celebration of the European Data Protection Day and the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data.

Serbia's Ombudsman Sasa Jankovic said that economic and social problems are hindering the promotion of human and civil rights and that there is a danger, not only in Serbia, of a degradation of human rights.

Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe (CoE) in Serbia Nadja Cuk said the CoE passed the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data on January 28, 1981, with the intention of ensuring the protection of individuals and the right to privacy.

The convention has been ratified by 43 countries, and to this day it remains the only international contract regulating the protection of the right to privacy, Cuk said and added that the signatories of the Convention are obligated to undertake all measures to establish the rights guaranteed by the Convention.

Cuk pointed out that the anniversary of the Convention is marked to offer citizens insight into the type of personal data that is collected, and acquaint them with the risks and the mechanisms for the protection of privacy.