A New Regulatory Framework as both an Incentive and Constraint to Urban Governance in Serbia

Abstract

This paper aims at critically re-assessing the new regulatory framework for public policy governance in Serbia, a structure of crucial importance for urban governance. Public policy regulation is a key objective of Serbia’s Regulatory Reform and Public Policy Improvement Strategy, 2016-2020. The first measure envisaged under the Action Plan to implement this Strategy is the creation of a common legal framework for governing public policies through the enactment of a Planning System Law. Its purpose is to govern the planning system by: (a) defining mechanisms for the adoption and mutual alignment of public policies; (b) establishing instruments to direct public policies and linking policymaking with budgeting; and (c) formalising the currently informal planning practice and integrating it with formal planning in all areas of public policy in Serbia. In the absence of an appropriate regulatory framework, Serbia’s current practices in urban governance have caused a proliferation of mutually unaligned documents and uncoordinated actions by stakeholders at various levels of government, resulting in the unsustainable use of resources and the generation of spatial conflicts. The proposed Planning System Law marks an advance in the understanding of the role and purpose of the public sector in urban governance in line with the concept of sustainable development and the requirements of European integration. This paper will review this Law proposal as a new legislative framework, which ought to contribute to the establishment of system and a system governance model. Therefore, the structure of the system, regarding its elements and their mutual relations, will be analysed with reference to systems theory and the model for the governance of the development process. After omissions were identified in the consistency and integration of the proposed solutions, recommendations to improve the system and its management were developed in line with the contemporary concept of good governance.