Eco-Services and the Role of Functional Regions in Serbia

Abstract

The new idea of functional regions has been interpreted in alignment with the idea of functional urban areas in the Serbian planning discourse and practice. The new Spatial Plan of Serbia introduced the idea in compliance with the Law on Regional Development and statistical nomenclature of regions NUTS2 and districts NUTS3 in Serbia. The functional region is understood and presented as a cluster of municipalities organized flexibly around some important project(s) with a proper (sub) regional institution in charge of spurring and realizing the same. The problem is with clustering municipalities i.e. understanding the role and meaning of it for their joint interest, with some political reasons and lack of awareness as the main reasons for that. On the other hand the list of strategic priorities has been prepared for all functional regions. The list contains projects for economic, social and ecological development. Eco-services are among the high priority issues but asking for intensive horizontal coordination and clustering a group of interested municipalities. Regional landfills, waste water purification, protected nature (high mountains) use, small rivers cleaning, are among such projects with some hot spots eliminating as paramount ones. Activating all stakeholders in the implementation phase is permanent duty of planners and administration, with possible economic measures to be pursued by the state. Eco-services are under intensive surveillance of the state administration in the phase of adapting its legislative to EU membership with an expected transfer of duties and jurisdiction to local communities (municipalities and cities). Vertical coordination with regions and the state is therefore a must for municipalities in this phase of development of Serbia. The illustrations will be presented for better understanding the initial position of functional regions in Serbia and the position of eco-services in the future of local communities clustering.