The awards were presented to the winners of the award Emperor Constantine and Empress Jelena for the most successful companies in seven categories. The first winners of the newly established public recognition awarded by the City of Nis for the business results achieved in 2017 are the companies Philip Morris, Leoni, Johnson Electric, Monikom and Vizus in the categories of the best companies, employers and exporters. The prize for the best beginner in the business was awarded to the startup company Future Reward System, while the Corporate Social Responsibility Prize was awarded to the Naissus Club of Businessmen. At the same time, the University of Nis was awarded for contributing to local economic development. At the ceremony organized at the University of Nis, the Mayor of Nis City Darko Bulatovic presented the award and on that occasion he pointed out that it was the intention of the City of Nis to express its gratitude to the best companies, entrepreneurs and institutions that have made an priceless contribution to the positioning of the City of Nis on the map of Serbia as a strong regional center, but also as an ideal destination for new investments. “We named the award after Emperor Constantine and Empress Helen, the patrons of Nis and introduced it with the intention of it becoming a prestigious award for the most successful companies that contribute to local economic development and improvement of the business climate index of our city” as Mayor Bulatovic said and added that the way of working and cooperation with investors, the experience of existing investors and the way of promoting and valorizing the potential of the city, such as – the University of Nis, the industrial tradition, the existence of infrastructure in the city, the connection of the city with European and Balkan roads, as well as professional and qualified human resources – were a clear message that Nis is the city of the future! The decision to award this kind of recognition was made by the Commission comprised of the highest representatives of the City, the Office for Local Economic Development, the Regional Chambers of Commerce, the City Economic Council and Nis Association of Economists with full respect for the proposals made by relevant organizations and institutions such as are Help, Eneka, National Employment Service, Advanced Technology Cluster, Deli Space and Start-up Center.

The first meeting of representatives of twenty municipalities and cities from the South-East Serbia region, from the South Morava Basin with the official of the RS Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-Government, the Public Investment Management Office and the UNDP Office in Belgrade, was held at Nis City Hall. The goal of the meeting, as pointed out, was to familiarize with the initiative for association and better cooperation of local self-governments from this area in situations of natural disasters and emergency situations, with special emphasis on preventive action in order to minimize such situations. According to the State Secretary at the Ministry of State Administration Ivan Bosnjak, in practice, it turned out that it was necessary to re-establish a system similar to the civil protection system that functioned well in the former SFRY and that many Western countries have established their defense systems against emergencies based on that model. Bosnjak stressed that it was necessary to create a system in which municipalities and cities would use and join all their capacities and jointly, coordinated, work primarily on prevention, whether it was cleaning and arranging watercourses, forest roads for extinguishing fires and similar activities, because floods, fires, earthquakes, and all other elements did not know the administrative boundaries, and therefore, so in order to prevent them the local administrations should work together. Deputy Director of the Public Investment Management Office, former Office for Reconstruction, Sandra Nedeljkovic pointed out that the damage from natural and other disasters was at least ten times more expensive than the money that should be invested in preventing these phenomena. All the disadvantages of our country in emergency situations were best seen in the floods of 2014 and therefore the Office and the line ministry insisted on uniting and working together in the prevention of such events, which, she said, would certainly be more and more frequent due to climate change. Up to now, under the auspices of the Standing Conference of Cities and Municipalities, several associations have been formed, territorially determined by the river basins, so that municipalities and cities from the West Morava, Drina, Danube and Kolubara basins have already joined together, and similar initiatives have been initiated in the Velika Morava Basin, Timok and Vojvodina.

Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic emphasized that the City of Nis supported this initiative and that it was ready to make available all its capacities to the neighboring municipalities because, as he said, not a single municipality could protect itself alone from natural disasters and the cooperation in this field was of immense importance. A similar assessment was also made by the Mayor of Gadzin Han, Sasa Djordjevic, who led the SCTM Committee for Emergency Situations. He said that the cooperation of small municipalities that did not have great technical and material capacities and human resources with larger municipalities and cities was simply necessary, and stressed that he expected that this process would be joined by all thirty municipalities and cities from this area. The Assemblies in all municipalities and towns in the South Morava basin should discuss the suggested Protocol on Association in the coming months, and the official signing was announced in mid-February. The host city of that meeting, as agreed, would be the City of Leskovac.

With the performance of the Nis Symphony Orchestra under the conductor of the band Svilen Simeonov and virtuoso on the violin Mario Hossen, the 44^th Nis Music Festival – NIMUS was opened last night. The first festival evening featured the works by Beethoven, Mascgni, Rossini and, of course, Paganini, who is also the favorite author of the famous Austrian violinist of Bulgarian origin. The festival was officially opened by the artistic director of this year’s NIMUS and the director of the Nis Symphony Orchestra Mr. Svetozar Vezenkovic and the Secretary of the City Administration for Culture and Information Mr. Nebojsa Stevanović, who pointed out that the Nis music festival had been for almost half a century one of the cultural symbols of Nis and the City of Nis, because of such festival, had the opportunity to host some of the greatest names of the world music scene. Otherwise, this year’s NIMUS will last until November 7^th.

City of Nis was the official guest city at the 63^rd Belgrade Book Fair and it was the opportunity for the city to promote publishing houses from Nis, cultural institutions, literary events, literary awards and well-known writers. The present audience at the Branko Miljkovic Hall was greeted by the Deputy Mayor Milos Bandjur who emphasized the importance of the writers from Nis being presented at the most important literary event in the country. Joint presentation by publishers and writers from Nis means a great return to the cultural scene of Serbia, after many years when Nis was inadequately present both at the book fair in Belgrade and at the publishing scene of Serbia.

After the signing of the memorandum on providing a framework for the improvement of the position of the Roma, signed by the Mayor of Nis and the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, the implementation of the ROMACTED program, which includes promotion of good governance and empowerment of the Roma community at the local level, supported by the EU and the Council of Europe being in charge of its implementation, started. As a part of the program activities, the part of the city where Roma population is predominantly live got new children’s playground. The project is supported by the German Development Agency GIZ and the value of building this playground with new play equipment is 10.000,00 EUR.Nis City Council Member Tijana Djordjevic attended the opening of the children’s playground and pointed out that the City of Nis was undertaking a number of actions in order to improve the position of Roma that made up a significant part of the population. In addition to the programs that are being implemented, there are also projects that are in the process of preparation, on which a specially formed local team at the city level is working. According to her, it is also very important that, all institutions that have the authority to take care of the protection and promotion of the position of national minorities and communities are included in the realization of the programs for improving the social status of Roma. Launching the ROMACTED Program the City of Nis set up a mobile team whose task would be direct field work. One of the basic goals of this program is to help the Roma community strengthen their basic rights and promote personal capacities and skills.

Within the Active Employment Policy measures implemented by the City of Nis and the National Employment Service, Subsidy Contracts were awarded to another group of companies and entrepreneurs in Nis in order to promote employment and self-employment of the unemployed, especially those who, due to age or other reasons were having difficulties in finding employment. At the ceremony in the City Hall, the subsidies were given to the beneficiaries of the program by the Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic, the Director of the National Employment Service, Zoran Martinovic, and the Director of National Employment Service Branch Office in Nis Boban Matic. Programs and measures of the active employment policies were implemented on the basis of an agreement signed between the City of Nis and the National Employment Service with a total value of 72,727,000 RSD. Of that amount, the city’s participation is 40 million RSD, while the rest is secured from the funds of the National Employment Service, and the result is the employment of 410 unemployed people. Mayor Bulatovic pointed out that only three years ago the amount that the City of Nis had allocated for this purpose was 5 million dinars, and today 40 million through several different Programs. “At the same time as the number of unemployed is decreasing, the number of employees in Nis is growing; the fight against unemployment is one of the main goals of the city and state management,” Bulatovic said. Otherwise, within the Active Employment Policy Program envisaged by the Local Action Plan for the Employment in Nis for 2018, 118 beneficiaries received subsidies for the self-employment program, 168 for job creation, 30 for acquiring practical knowledge, and 94 for the public works program.

A traveling exhibition dedicated to the liberation of Serbia in the autumn of 1918 and the memory of the solidarity of Serbian and French soldiers and civilians in the First World War was opened at Oficirski Dom in Nis. It has been a century since the breakthrough of the Thessaloniki front enabled allied troops of the Eastern Army to progress towards the Danube and the Adriatic, as well as the liberation of Serbia, which suffered a great deal in the war. Feelings that are invoked by the stories about the liberation of Serbia by the Eastern Army, with the French and Serbian troops in the first trenches, remain at the heart of the common memory, which is preserved by many Serbian cities. The opening of the exhibition was attended by His Excellency the Ambassador of France to Serbia Frederik Mondolini and Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic. And after a hundred years, there are many Serbian families who cherish the memory of those who fought for freedom. There are numerous stories that testify to the special solidarity of French and Serbian civilians and soldiers during that war period. This exhibition brings us back to these historic days and brings the testimonies of the citizens of Serbia who responded to the invitation of the French Institute in Serbia and agreed to share stories and memories kept in their families through generations. The testimonies were collected from March to June 1918 and will be presented on the social networks of the French Institute. Many of them are included in this exhibition. The exhibition was realized by the French Institute in Serbia in cooperation with the city administrations, archives and museums of the cities of Belgrade, Kladovo, Knjaževac, Leskovac, Negotin, Niš, Pirot, Prokuplje, Vranje, Zaječar and professional associates Stanislav Sretenović, a historian, and Aleksandra Mirić, an architect-conservator.

The session of the Committee of Regions – Republic of Serbia Joint Consultative Committee held today in Nis dealt with the Republic of Serbia’s EU accession negotiations and the impact the negotiations have at the subnational level of government. The second part of the session was dedicated to the topic of tourism as a catalyst of a better life at the local level.

The first session featured RS Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government Branko Ruzic as one of the keynote speakers, who said that “the public administration reform was one of three basic criteria for EU accession.” He also reminded about some of the achievements in that area, including legislation adoption, education and local community development, and spoke about digitization plans.

Speaking at the session titled “The Republic of Serbia’s EU accession talks and their influence on the subnational level of government,” Deputy Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia Mateja Norčič-Štamcar said there was no municipality in Serbia that had not benefited from Union’s assistance. “It is of utmost importance for local self-governments to prepare for EU accession – to create living, developing towns. The central and local government should find a way to improve their cooperation, as we all know that municipalities are the generators of development,” said Norčič-Štamcar, reminding the audience that “over the past 10 years, the EU has donated EUR85 million for improved local infrastructure, business development and improved status of marginalised groups.” Also, she touched upon the topic of EU integration of the Western Balkans countries, saying that their future undoubtedly lied in the EU. “The story of the EU in Serbia is a story about an ever closer friendship that will lead to Serbia’s EU accession,” said Deputy Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia and added that “70 per cent of EU legislation will be transposed to local regulations, meaning that EU standards and values will be implemented at that very same level.”

Assistant Minister of European Integration Mihailo Dašić underlined the importance of participation of representatives of local governments, AP Vojvodina and the City of Belgrade in the work of the Committee, primarily in terms of contributing to finding appropriate solutions for better functioning of subnational levels of government. The Ministry of European Integration, as an institution responsible for managing Negotiating Group 22, dealing with regional cooperation, puts special emphasis on cooperation with representatives of regional and local governments, stressed Dašić.

“Bearing in mind the experience of our colleagues from the countries that are now members of the European Union, it can be concluded that the success of the whole negotiation process depends on the quality of negotiating positions or attitudes that must respect the reality at the local level, the willingness of the local government to take on the obligation of introducing the EU standards in respecting the competencies, capacity, necessary financial resources, as well as the timeframe for the introduction of standards, “said the president of the SCTM and the Mayor of Sombor, Dusanka Golubovic, adding that there are large differences between local self-governments in terms of size, population and level of development, capacities to implement obligations. In that sense, it is important to take into account the specific needs and different capacities and level of development of the local self-governments when adopting EU standards.” Given that local self-governments cannot act independently, nor have resources for horizontal and vertical communication with other actors in the negotiation process, the role of Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities is of paramount importance because it can present political position of local self-governments and it should be consulted by the central authorities in this process, “added Mayor Golubovic.

The session “Tourism as a catalyst of a better life at the local level” featured statistical data about the number of tourists and overnight stays and new accommodation capacity around Serbia, as well as examples of good practice in this field from both Serbia and abroad – the Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Vrnjacka Banja in Serbia. Steffen Hudolin Head of Operations II at the EU Delegation, one the keynote speakers at the tourism session, said that he visited all IPA-funded projects. “We have recognized the potentials of Serbia and the EU and, together with the Government of Serbia, we have invested EUR3 million in projects aimed at improving tourism potential and infrastructure,” Hudolin said. He mentioned the reconstruction of the Golubac Fortress as an example of good practice. “We have turned it into a sustainable tourist attraction,” said Hudolin, noting that the sector of tourism offers thousands of jobs at the local level, making it particularly attractive to youth.

The Joint Consultative Committee was formed in 2014. Its task is to establish dialogue and cooperation between regional and local governments in Serbia, on the one hand, and the EU Committee of Regions, on the other, and to prepare them for participation in the work of the Committee of Regions, upon EU accession.

The City of Nis and the Municipality of Niska Banja will be the host of the 5th session of the Joint Consultative Committee of the EU-Serbia Region Committee. Apart from the representatives of almost all cities and municipalities from our country, the session will be attended by a large number of guests from abroad, members of the Committee from all countries in the region. The study tour of the project Health Paths and Meetings in Niska Banja which is financed through Interreg IPA CBC Bulgaria Serbia funds was organized last night. Together with the Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatović and the President of the City Municipality Niska Banja, Dejan Jovanović, the European parliamentarians walked along the paths of health in the park above the fountain. The reconstruction of the health paths is financed by a cross-border project jointly implemented by City Municipality Niska Banja and Bulgarian municipality Zemen. The objectives of the project are increasing of the tourist attractiveness of the cross-border region of the municipalities Zemen and Niska Banja. The project aims at capitalization of the natural and historical recourses in the region and improvement of touristic products. Through investments in infrastructure the project will contribute to the creation of more attractive tourist conditions and will attract further investments. The project will also popularize the region as a tourist destination. Planned project activities include reconstruction and modernization of the community center in Gabrov Dol and supporting construction activities. In Niska Banja infrastructure activities cover rehabilitation of health walking paths, the amphitheater and scene in the city center and the park. The project includes organization of tours in each country for tour-operators to popularize the project results and the tourist opportunities. Another activity envisages the digitalization of main tourist sites in both municipalities and their integration on a common website which will further contribute to popularization of the region.

Serbian Prime Minister Ms. Ana Brnabic visited Philip Morris International on the occasion of marking 15 years since this global tobacco industry leader has privatized the Tobacco Industry Nis. The acquisition of this largest domestic tobacco factory continues to be one of the most successful privatizations and the largest direct foreign investments in Serbia so far.

Aleksandar Jakovljevic, Philip Morris General Director for Southeast Europe, said that since the arrival in Serbia, the company has invested more than $ 850 million in modernization and development of production to date and planned to continue investing in order to keep it stable and to meet the constant demand growth.  “The fact that we have increased exports 40 times compared to ten years ago and that as many as four out of five of all cigarettes today produced in Nis are intended for placement in 50 markets around the world, the best proof is the quality of this investment, our factory and 900 employees”, said Jakovljevic. Philip Morris is the second largest taxpayer in the country and accounts for more than five percent of the total tax revenues of the state budget. Based on excise duties, VAT and other taxes from coming to Serbia to date, the company has paid $ 6.5 billion to the budget, said the director Jakovljevic.

Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic together RS Prime Minister Ana Brnabic , during the visit to the factory, learned more about new production system which completely automates the management of the finished products.  Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said that the Serbian government was continuing to improve the business environment so that “companies like Philip Morris continue to operate in Serbia, achieve excellent business results and hire our employees and engage domestic companies as subcontractors.” At the end of the visit, Brnabic appealed to the company’s management to “direct some of its research into alternative tobacco products to our country. Innovation and research and development are important for the modernization of our economy and the acceleration of economic growth. ”