Sorry, you need to enable JavaScript to visit this website.
Skip to main content
European Commission logo

YouthWiki

EACEA National Policies Platform
Serbia

Serbia

8. Creativity and Culture

8.2 Administration and governance

Last update: 28 November 2023
On this page
  1. Governance
  2. Cross-sectorial cooperation

Governance

National cultural policy is created at the national level and implemented at the levels of the republic, province and local self-government.

Main actors

The Ministry of Culture and Information is responsible for development and promotion of culture and artistic creation, and the protection and preservation of cultural heritage. Care about the promotion of contemporary creativity and cultural creativity of socially vulnerable groups (national minorities, persons with disabilities, children and youth, etc.), as well as interethnic cultural cooperation is placed within the Sector for Contemporary Creativity and Creative Industries.

The National Council for Culture is formed as an expert-advisory body, in order to provide constant professional support in the preservation, development and dissemination of culture. The members of the Council are elected from among eminent and well-known artists and cultural experts, for a period of five years. The activities and tasks of the Council are:

  • analyses and gives an opinion on the situation in culture in the Republic of Serbia;
  • gives suggestions on creating cultural policy;
  • make proposals for the development and improvement of cultural activities;
  • considers and gives an opinion on the proposal of the strategy for the development of culture and gives an assessment of the implementation;
  • propose criteria for acquiring the status of a prominent artist, i.e. a prominent expert in culture;
  • give an opinion in the procedure of awarding a prize for encouraging cultural creativity;
  • gives suggestions and proposals for the regulation of other issues in the field of culture as well as interdepartmental cooperation (science, education, urbanism, international cooperation, etc.);

General distribution of responsibilities

Certain responsibilities in the field of culture are transferred to the level of regional, provincial and local authorities and have a separate budget for these purposes.

The Law on Culture defines the types of subjects in culture and states that cultural activities can be performed by cultural institutions, cultural associations, artists, associates, i.e. cultural experts, as well as other subjects in culture. A number of cultural institutions are relatively well distributed across the country, in the sense that every city and municipality have at least some space where citizens can enjoy culture.

Cross-sectoral cooperation

According to Article 20 of the Law on Local Self-Government of the Republic of Serbia, local self-government units (cities and municipalities) are the founders of cultural institutions on their territory and provide working conditions, organize activities related to the protection of cultural goods of importance to the city or municipality and provide funds for financing and co-financing programmes and projects in the field of culture. Also, according to Article 4 of the Law on Culture, local self-government units take care of meeting the needs of citizens in culture on their territory and regulate certain issues of interest to their citizens, as well as the manner of their realization within the rights and obligations determined by the Constitution and the law.

Cross-sectoral approach is also achieved through development, implementation and monitoring of the both National Youth Strategy and its Action Plans and Culture Development Strategy. To achieve set goal, responsible ministries share responsibilities with other authorities responsible for culture, the ministry responsible for education, the ministry responsible for information and media, local self-governments.

In accordance with the Law on Youth, Act 16 (see Youth Wiki/Serbia 1.2 Law on Youth), the Government established the Youth Council in 2014 as the governmental advisory body responsible for cross-sectoral collaborative work. 

The Council gathers members of different ministries, youth offices and national councils of national minorities, youth organizations, organizations for youth and their associations enabling cross-sectoral, horizontal, inter-ministerial and interdepartmental approach to youth policy-making across various policy-making fields, aiming at maximizing the potential of youth policy. Representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Information are among other members of the Council. More on cross-sectoral approach between the ministries can be read in Chapter 1.5 Cross-sectoral approach with other ministries.