07/10/2024
With the support of the European EU4IM project, professionals from the State Aid Control Commission of Serbia have received training on awareness-raising, communication and evaluation tools.
Professionals from the State Aid Control Commission (CSAC) of the Republic of Serbia have attended a training on awareness raising, communication and evaluation tools, with the support of the EU-funded project “European Union Support to Serbia’s Internal Market” (EU4IM).
The workshop has been organized in order to evaluate different tools to improve the outreach of CSAC activities and strengthen its awareness raising effectiveness. The topics were selected in agreement with the Serbian institution, and the trainers were selected from among the staff of the CNMC, an institution with which FIIAPP works as an expert partner.
CSAC is a recently established institution competent in state aid control in the country. According to the latest EU progress report (2023), it presents room for improvement in terms of raising awareness of Serbian grantors, as well as increasing the technical capacity of its officials to perform ex post assessments of state aid.
Good state aid control requires compliance by recipients with the applicable regulations, as well as the collaboration of other key actors such as other administrations, academia, the private sector and society. This activity has therefore addressed two essential issues: the need to develop awareness and communication strategies on the work of the CSAC itself, as well as the examination of the theoretical and methodological bases of different possibilities for the evaluation of state aid.
Relevant tools such as the creation of accounts in social networks, digital contents or guides to elaborate press releases, as well as online graphic design and mass dissemination to improve institutional transparency, accessibility and awareness of the different stakeholders have been presented.
This workshop provided an opportunity to exchange knowledge among experienced professionals, as well as to develop CSAC’s capacities on the design and implementation of its actions in the short and medium term. The sessions also fostered further communication and cooperation between the institutions involved, the experts and the EU4IM project.
The project, led by FIIAPP from Spain, in collaboration with the Slovak Agency (SlovakAid, SAIDC) and the Italian Agency (AICS) for development cooperation, works in 8 key intervention areas for the entry into the Single Market: Competition, State aid, market surveillance, product quality infrastructures, consumer protection, e-commerce, one-stop-shop, and intellectual property rights.
