ECB extends an EU-funded assistance programme with the National Bank of Serbia

Today, the European Central Bank (ECB), together with national central banks of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and the European Commission, decided to extend the two-year central bank cooperation programme with the National Bank of Serbia (NBS). The programme, which was launched on 1 February 2011, has reached all its initial objectives and will be extended until 31 December 2013. This is in order to further strengthen the institutional capacity of the NBS and support its efforts to prepare for joining the ESCB, once the Republic of Serbia has qualified for membership of the European Union (EU). The extension is being financed using the remainder of the €2,500,000 of funding originally allocated to the project by the EU's Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance. Over the next eleven months, the programme will help the NBS to prepare strategies and internal policies that meet EU central banking standards for accounting and financial reporting, and information technology. It will also help to strengthen the economic modelling and crisis response capacity of the NBS in the area of financial stability.

The extension will be implemented by the ECB in partnership with Българска народна банка (Bulgarian National Bank), Česká narodní banka, the Banque de France, the Magyar Nemzeti Bank, De Nederlandsche Bank, the Oesterreichische Nationalbank, the Banco de Portugal, Banca Naţională a României, Banka Slovenije and Národná banka Slovenska.

The initial part of the programme, implemented by the ECB and 21 national central banks of the ESCB, covered eleven different areas: financial sector supervision; legal harmonisation; liberalisation of capital movements; foreign exchange reserve management; monetary and exchange rate operations; financial services consumer protection; EU accession support; economic analysis and research; statistics; payment systems; and financial stability.