CREATING AN INVENTORY OF ADMINISTRATIVE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE ECONOMY WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE REGISTRY OF ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES
The "EU for Better Business Environment – EU4BE" project, implemented by the World Bank with the support of the European Union and in partnership with the Government of the Republic of Serbia, aims to support reforms focused on improving the business environment in the Republic of Serbia. The project commenced in June 2021 and will last until June 2025, with a total project value of 5.5 million euros. The main partners in the project are the Ministry of Economy, the Republic Secretariat for Public Policies, the Ministry of European Integration, and other ministries and state administration bodies.
The EU4BE project comprises three components:
- Establishment of a platform for coordinating reforms to improve the business environment,
- Support for optimizing administrative procedures and the legal framework, and
- Instrument for flexible technical support.
One of the key steps to reduce the administrative burden on economic entities is to strengthen the efficiency and transparency of public administration, including through the establishment of a public registry of administrative procedures and requests– the Registry of Administrative Procedures and Requests (RAP portal). Administrative requests represent the prescribed obligation of an economic entity to prepare, adopt, record, archive, and make the appropriate documentation available to inspections. This also includes providing suitable personnel, equipment, facilities, and other conditions in accordance with the regulations of the Republic of Serbia, to ensure smooth business operations.
The second component of the EU4BE project supports the identification, census, and simplification of administrative requests, and finalizing the RAP portal. This enables entrepreneurs to reduce time and costs in their business operations. Control checklists of inspections and the analysis of regulations applied by inspections during inspection supervision were used as a starting point in identifying administrative requests. So far, EU4BE has identified over 4000 administrative request, with about half entered into the Registry of Administrative Procedures and Requests (RAP portal). Additionally, 130 officials have been trained for work on the census and data entry into the RAP portal.
In the next period, the remaining administrative requests will be entered into the RAP portal, followed by efforts to simplify and optimize them through legal analysis and consultations with economic entities and relevant authorities, regulatory decision-makers.