EU supports refugees and displaced persons

The EU-funded project Supporting Access to Rights, Employment and Livelihood Enhancement of Refugees and Internally Displaced People in Serbia aims at helping both the displaced persons and the community they live in. In the past three years, the EU has contributed EUR 22.4 million to support 2,911 families.

"This is clearly a difficult challenge, because it is a fact that even 16 years after the war there are still people living in refugee centres,", Head of Delegation of the European Union to Serbia Vincent Degert said at the presentation of the project Supporting Access to Rights, Employment and Livelihood Enhancement of Refugees and Internally Displaced People in Serbia.

"It is not normal to meet 16 years after the end of the war, still solving the problems of the displaced persons and refugees,” he said, and added that the commitment of international community to providing support to displaced persons and refugees was beyond doubt.

The State Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy Zoran Martinović said that there were 210,000 displaced persons and about 75,000 refugees living in Serbia, and added that it was necessary to find a long-term solution which will result in the closure of collective centres and inclusion of these persons into local communities.

The European Union supports this project with EUR 3.5 million. On this occasion, a grant scheme allocation plan worth EUR 2.6 million for at least 20 municipal projects in the area of social inclusion was also presented