Head of the Department for Consumer Protection at the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Vesna Novaković said that Serbia will soon get a new Law on Consumer Protection which will be fully enforceable.

Opening the conference organized to mark the completion of the project “Strengthening Consumer Protection in Serbia”, Vesna Novaković added that when writing the law, it was taken into consideration that it be in accordance with European regulations, and that its provisions be enforceable in the sense that they specify the role of inspection bodies, and define the roles and tasks of non-governmental organizations for the protection of consumers, as well as local government units.

The participants of the “Strengthening Consumer Protection in Serbia” project agreed that it was necessary to raise the awareness of consumers about their rights and to strengthen and better the cooperation between consumer protection organizations.

The “Strengthening Consumer Protection in Serbia” project was funded from the pre-accession funds of the European Union, and the end-user was the Ministry of Foreign and Internal Trade and Telecommunications, as the ministry responsible for consumer protection. During nearly three years of implementing this project in the entire territory of Serbia, a lot of effort and knowledge was put into raising the level of consumer protection in Serbia and bringing it closer to the level of the European Union. The success of the efforts is evidenced by the fact that the EU Delegation in Serbia included it on the list of successful projects funded by the EU.

The conference was attended by representatives of ministries and regulatory bodies responsible for consumer protection in the countries of the region, thus continuing the practice of the relevant ministry to promote cooperation at a regional and international level, which is one of the goals of the Strategy for Consumer Protection for the period 2013-2018.
The participants were addressed by the Head of Operations of the EU Delegation to Serbia Jose Antonio Gomes, the representative of the consortium that carried out the project Dimitris Bakolas, and the Team Leader and Key Expert of the project Professor Thierry Bourgoignie, as well as other domestic and foreign experts who worked on implementing this project.