Serbian Province Plans To Keep Brussels Office

Serbia's northern province plans to keep its office in Brussels, opened in October 2011 to attract foreign investment and obtain better access to European regional funds.

Serbia’s Constitutional Court ruled in July that the office in Brussels was not in line with the constitution as it suggested that the province claimed competences over EU integration that belong to central government.

Bojan Pajtic, the prime minister of the province, is currently negotiating with the government to find a model that will enable the province to keep its Brussels’s office active.

One proposition is to rename the office, leaving off the name of the province, and place it under the jurisdiction of the government's mission to the EU.

Under the umbrella of the Mission of Serbia to the EU, a number of Serbian cities, including Kragujevac and Nis, have representatives in Brussels.

It is believed that the director of the Vojvodina Office in Brussels, Predrag Novikov, will stay in its post, but as representative of the city of Novi Sad.

The July Court ruling deepened the political divide in Serbia, as well as in Vojvodina, between liberals who champion provincial autonomy and nationalists who see it as a threat to Serbian unity.