Implementing European Development Schemes in Serbia: Expertise and Information Support

1. Miša Vujošević, economist, spatial and environmental plannerInstitute of Architecture and Urban Planning of Serbia, Belgrade Implementing New European Development Schemes and Initiatives in Serbia: The Problem of Expertise and Information SupportAn independent view

2. Content • More recent European development schemes and initiatives • Strategic development planning in Serbia: development context • Period till 2002-2003: the years of ‘’planning and its enemies’’ • The most recent period: a shift to a more strategic thinking and research • Two examples • The urge to establish a new national policy and selected priorities

3. More recent European development schemes and initiatives • ESDP, 1999 • Guiding Principles for Sustainable Spatial Development of the European Continent, 2000 • Ljubljana Declaration on the Territorial Dimension of Sustainable Development, 2003 • Territorial Agenda of the European Union. Towards a More Competitive and Sustainable Europe of Diverse Regions, 2007 • Leipzig Charter on Sustainable European Cities, 2007 • CADSES/VISION PLANET • ESPON 2013 • ESTIA-OSPE, 1998-2001 • SPOSE, 2003-2006

4. Strategic development planning in Serbia: development context and the key problems • The miss-events of 1990s, followed by a dynamic recovery after 2000 (GDP growing at the annual rate of ca 6%), however insufficient: ‘’growth without development’’ • Serbia becoming a part of the ‘’inner peripheries of Europe’’ • Still among the most undeveloped European countries (low GDP pc, low HDI, extremely high unemployment, social inequalities and poverty, enormous regional development differences: concentration of population and activities in the broader Belgrade metropolitan region, demographic recession, etc.) • Extremely dissipative patterns of production, consumption and energy utilization

5. Period till 2002-2003: the years of ‘’strategic planning and its enemies’’ • A long tradition of spatial and urban development planning over few decades till the end of 1980s/beginning of 1990s • A general anti-development and anti-planning stance among the key ‘’architects of transition reforms’’ (mostly economists of neo-liberal provenance) as from the beginning of 1990s • A prevalence of ‘’new-menagerialism-and-marketing-and-agency-and-branding’’ syndrome • A lack of strategic thinking, research and development management • Planning as ‘’junior partner’’ of market and poorly legitimized privatization • Planning practice: combining elements from ‘’crisis-management’’ and project-led approaches • Institutional and organizational aspects: an apart nexus of old and new ‘’Institutional Zombies’’ • Previous strategic schemes non-implemented (e.g., The Spatial Plan of the Republic of Serbia, 1996), and a lack of new strategic documents for long-term sustainable spatial development afterwards, to match the more recent European trends and practices • A new ‘’intruder’’: the master plan, as a key instrument for promoting sectoral business interests, with no formalized links developed to formalized spatial and urban planning

6. The most recent period: a shift to more strategic thinking, research and programming • More than 30 development initiatives and schemes at the state/national level (plans, strategies, programmes, strategic projects, etc.), and even more so at various sub-national levels • Many of the documents in question make use of the sustainability paradigm, although the majority mostly keep to general principles and criteria (utilized as ‘’general political and professional mantras’’) • Many hundreds of general and specific sustainable development indicators construed, though in non-coordinated and un-harmonized way, being a derivative of the lack of a common methodological approaches and patterns • (Nominally) a fair – replication of and correspondence to categories and indicators utilized in the European initiatives and schemes • Poorly developed analytical/operative concepts of sustainable development, and supportive sets/systems of indicators • Poor differentiation of indicators regarding their various purposes (ex ante evaluation of development options, predictive purposes, monitoring and ex post evaluation of implementation, etc.)

7. Two examples • SPOSE (Spatial Planning Observatory for South-eastern Europe), 2003-2006 • In total 27 indicators developed and used for the evaluation of the issues of polycentric growth, access to transportation infrastructure, and management of natural resources and cultural heritage, and for the assessment of development options/prospects and implied policies (NUTS2 and NUTS3, in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, FR Yugoslavia, FYROM/Macedonia, Hungary, Region Abruzzo, Region Emilia Romagna, Romania and Slovenia) • Some 40 sectoral and 15 cross-thematic digital maps produced • A network of institutions and organizations established, to produce SPOP (Spatial Planning Observatory Platform), still un-activated 2. National Strategy of Sustainable Development of Serbia (NSSDS), 2008 • Some 70 sustainable development indicators outlined (national/state level), for the key issues of poverty, strategic development management (governance), health, education, demography (population), economic development, global economic partnership, sustainability of production and consumption patterns, natural accidents, climate/air, soils, water management, and biodiversity • Additional indicators to be construed in the sequel, for the monitoring and ex post evaluation of the implementation of NSSDS

8. Development prospects and key tasks of strategic spatial, urban and environmental planning/policy – what is expected from the Brussels, to effectively support the professional expertise in Serbia regarding the key matter? • Bleak prospects for Serbia to get ‘’europeanized’’ outside the EU • The imperative of shifting the dialogue beyond the political inter-face between the Brussels and Belgrade – to the professional strands proper • Supporting the professional/scientific community in Serbia to shift the sustainable spatial development and related matters closer to the top of overall political agenda, and providing effective support to scientific institutions/organizations • Adjusting the ESPON categories to the national (regional, local, etc.) needs (e.g.: perceiving the ‘’access to knowledge’’ as ‘’access to knowledge on the exclusion/inclusion terms for Serbia to join the Union’’; radically improving the literacy rate; etc.) • Providing for more rigorous and systematic approach in the restructuring of the existing sets of indicators, in terms of their respective purposes (i.e., ex ante evaluation, prediction, monitoring and ex post evaluation of implementation, etc.), via concrete programmes and projects • Providing veritable and effective assistance for developing new sets indicators, in order to address the most pressing development problems of regions and locales, and to support development initiatives and aspirations at various sub-national governance levels, via concrete programmes and projects

9. The urge to establish new national policy of sustainable spatial development and selected priorities • To establish National Focal Institution for sustainable spatial development and related matters • To work out National Strategy of Sustainable Spatial Development, as a key instrument for recovering territorial capital of Serbia, in terms of its competitiveness, attractiveness, liveability and institutional and organizational capacity (efficiency of governance structures) • To develop sustainable spatial development planning as the integrative strategic framework for the majority of social, economic, cultural and other development initiatives, supported by an appropriate system of indicators for the monitoring and ex post evaluation of its implementation • To fully integrate EIA, SEA and TIA procedures into the planning procedures proper • To work out National Platforms for joining the ESPON 2013 (1), activate the national part of the SPOSE (2) and to contribute to the work on the SPOP (3) • Adjusting national statistical system to the EUROSTAT systems and practices, and to the system of NUTS • In sum, to flexibly apply ESPON approaches, methods and indicators, in accord with national, regional and local fixities and givens, in order to contribute to a ‘’Europe of heterotopias’’ (instead of an apparent empirical inclination to a ‘’Europe as a monotopia’’)