This work aims to analyse the environment for the private sector development in Serbia. Since the relaunch of transitional reforms in 2001, building up the business environment which is conducive for the private sector growth has been one of the priorities of economic policy. Based on data from the World Bank's "Doing Business" publications, we can conclude that although improvement in the overall quality of the business environment in Serbia has been achieved, it has not been sustained, and several problematic issues maintain to be bottlenecks for more substantial progress. Serbia is lagging behind the EU average, and, in order to catch up, further increases in efficiency and reductions of overall costs of various administrative procedures are required
All of the observed Western Balkan countries are committed to the principles of green economy. Over the previous years they have made substantial effort in establishing the institutional, legislative and strategic framework for green growth. In this chapter we give a brief overview of the relevant strategic documents that have been in place as of 2014. From the viewpoint of green growth, they include several types of strategies. The most relevant are those that directly aim to lead economy along the pathway of green (or sustainable) development, and they are often entitled as Sustainable development strategies. We can also observe the existence of another type of comprehensive strategic documents that are relevant for green growth, and these are the development strategies. Although they are oriented towards achieving core economic growth, they often contain provisions for attaining a greener growth. Strategic documents on environment, nature, biodiversity etc. are also important in directing the economy towards sustainability. Then, there are sector-specific strategies, among which energy, agriculture and forestry strategies are of particular significance.
This chapter focuses on the analysis of employment policies in the Western Balkan countries and examines levels of harmonization of national employment policies throughout these countries with the European Union employment policy framework. The observed Western Balkan countries achieved different statuses in the process of approaching the European Union. Today they include acceding, candidate and potential candidate countries. Depending on their current statuses, levels of convergence of employment policies vary. Only Croatia, that will join the European Union through the seventh enlargement, was obliged to propose to the European Commission the pre-accession Joint Assessment Paper on employment policy priorities. Next three candidate countries – Montenegro, FYR Macedonia and Serbia – will be obligated to propose similar documents, in order to prepare their institutional capacities for the implementation of integrated employment policy guidelines and to show certain levels of commitment to the reforms inspired by achievement of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth until 2020. In this chapter the convergence is observed through possible translation of the European Union employment policy guidelines, set out by the Europe 2020 Strategy, to the labour market of an individual country. In terms of available employment policy outcomes, all observed Western Balkan countries are still far from achieving the European Union headline targets. The common priorities of the Western Balkan countries are to increase overall level of employability, through better education and skills, and to conduct prominent reforms in order to improve their economies.
The aim of this paper is to analyse main characteristics of the commodity trade between the Western Balkan countries and their major trading partner, the European Union, and the changes that occurred over the previous ten years, since the EU introduced autonomous trade preferences to the region. A ten-year period, from 2001 to 2010, is observed, and Eurostat import and export data at one and two digit SITC levels are used. Aggregate data for the Western Balkans and the EU 27 are observed, although certain comments related to individual WB countries, and also related to the EU's new member states, are made.
