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AN OVERVIEW OF GENERAL SOCIO-ECONOMIC SITUATION IN SERBIA
within the timeframe envisaged by the law. A detailed look at the structure of entities
that received the money from the budget line 481, which is titled “donations to
nongovernmental organizations” shows that, besides NGOs, it is used for financing sport
and youth organizations, religious communities, political parties, cultural organizations,
professional associations, historical archives, and the like. The largest individual beneficiary
from budget line 481 is the Serbian Orthodox Church, followed by the Red Cross, which
received half of that amount. Since four large groups that are financed from line 481 are
presented together in the budget proposal which is every year adopted by the Parliament,
it is not possible to see exactly how much the Government of Serbia allocated for each
group. This could be found out only at the end of fiscal year through information on the
execution of the budget. Believing that the distinction of these groups of beneficiaries in
separate budget lines would provide better transparency of the budgetary process and
better insight into the spending of tax payers’ money, CRNPS submitted such initiative
to the Ministry of Finance twice –in 2007, when no response was received, and in 2010,
when the initiative, supported with the signatures of 188 NGOs, was forwarded to the
members of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly of Serbia, too. It is not
possible to determine from the answer of the Ministry of Finance whether the initiative
could be accepted or not, while no member of the Finance Committee expressed any
opinion on this matter.
§ 129. The Republic of Serbia aspires to become a member of the European Union. It may
be said that we are at the beginning of this path and many areas of life in our country need
to undergo reform and to change in order to become a modern and strong democracy
which fully respects human rights of its citizens, which treats its citizens equally and
inclusively, which invests in its children, which admits and bears the consequences of
its mistakes from the past. The role of civil society is to help in this process, inter alia by
pressuring the state when it observes any departures. But before everything else, civil
society in Serbia need to fight for its formal status and recognition of its role, and above
all for its independence.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA - Report for the period 2000-2010 49