The key goal of the Serbian National Strategy for the Accession of Serbia-Montenegro to the European Union is to provide an expert foundation for the decision making in the European integration process. The Strategy should provide a coordinated set of measures, policies and institutions necessary for the EU association, as well as the plan for the approximation of the domestic legislation with the acquis communautaire. Consequently, all these measures will help meet the requirements of the fully fledged membership in the EU, with little adjustment costs.

After it has been debated and adopted, the Strategy will become the official document and the key source of Serbiaand EU’s relations as well as the source of internal reforms and adjustments conditioned by the EU accession process. Above all, the National Strategy is:

- a synthesis of operational directives for the government, ministries and other public institutions involved in the EU integration process;

- a basis for the development and implementation of the integration programmes by sectors and activities;

- a basis for coordination of sectoral priorities in the European integration process.

Furthermore, the National Strategy works out the priorities with regard to the adjustment of public administration to the EU standards. It emphasizes that the precondition for successful integration is a strong support from the whole society, knowledge about the EU, access to reliable and objective information and open dialogue between the government and citizens.

Two types of experts will be involved in the preparation of the National Strategy:

1. specialists working in universities, institutes, vocational associations or specialised non-government organisations;

2. experts working in ministries or other public institutions.

Serbian Government has engaged experts from responsible ministries when necessary and they were involved in the preparation of the project by their field of expertise. In this way, individual areas have been thoroughly analysed and the data and important information about the activities and measures taken have been exchanged.

The part of expert team outside the public administration that was involved in the creation of ‘Serbian National Strategy for the SCGAccession of to the EU’ was selected through the public procurement procedure, and it consisted of experts from the Economic Institute, Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, Centre for European Law and the Institute for Comparative Law.

At the proposal of the Serbian Government, the European Integration Office will coordinate the work on the project.

When the work in certain areas had been finalised, round tables and debates were organized in order to examine the proposed strategic measures. Considering that the EU accession process exceeds the interests of public administration, other stakeholders took part in round tables, such as the experts who were not directly involved in the work on the Strategy, representatives of non-government organisations, chambers of commerce, etc. Their input represented a valuable contribution to the Strategy as well as to the general understanding and support to the EU association.