Eighteen years after the war ended in Yugoslavia, during which more than two million people migrated in the region, the Republic of Serbia continues to provide shelter for 57.247 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Although the Republic of Serbia, with 250.000 former refugees received citizenship, is the most massive example of integration of refugees in contemporary Europe, the need for addressing housing issues and improve the economic status of the refugee population is still large.
Republic of Serbia, with the help of the international community, manages to provide about five housing solutions daily for refugees and internally displaced persons. If it continued at the same pace it would take the next seventeen years to address the housing needs of all people in need.

There were 700 collective centers that housed approximately 60.000 people in Serbia. Now there are 29 of them with 2.400 beneficiaries, mostly internally displaced persons. Due to existing housing programs which are following the closure of collective centers, the financial support of the European Union and from the budget of the Republic of Serbia and the support of UNHCR, over the next three years all of the remaining centers will be closed, and their owners will receive dignified housing solutions.

Better days await refugee families living in inadequate private accommodation. Thanks to Regional Housing Program of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia, 16.780 of the most vulnerable families in Serbia will get proper housing solutions.

Along with the process of regional cooperation in the Western Balkans, which was initiated by Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Jovan Krkobabić, and the provision of funding for the Regional Housing Program, there has been some progress in the process of resolving the remaining outstanding issues relevant to the refugee population: effective mechanisms for convalidation of years of service in Croatia are established, terms of housing for former tenancy rights holders outside the areas of special state concern have been reopened, and the number of pending requests for the restoration of the destroyed property is significantly reduced.
Certain issues such as due but unpaid pensions to the Croatian citizens living as refugees in Serbia and the unresolved seized tenancy rights are still plaguing relations between the two countries.
We expect that the Republic of Croatia, in the light of European values and standards in the field of human, property and acquired rights, will make the necessary steps to correct the violation of property and other rights of refugees from Croatia who have been made in the past.
The Republic of Serbia will remain committed to providing all kinds of assistance to refugees and push for the peaceful enjoyment and protection of private property and acquired rights of citizens, guaranteed and certified by ratifying Annex G and E of the Succession Agreement.

 

• Serbia is the first country in Europe and one of the five countries in the world with so-called protracted refugee situation

• Till 1995, Serbia has hosted 618.000 refugees from former Yugoslav republics (266.000 refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina and 330.000 from Croatia)

• According to official data, only 140.000 refugees have returned to their countries of origin (70.000 to Bosnia and Herzegovina and 70.000 to Croatia)

• Regional Housing Program (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia) provides for meeting the housing needs of 27.000 most vulnerable refugee families in the region and 16.780 families in Serbia

• An additional number of refugees in Serbia will be able to get housing solution in case of their return to the country of origin within the Regional Housing Projects of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina

• The total value of the Regional Housing Program for four countries is 584 million euros. 335 million euros of that amount is for Serbia

• The funds for the implementation of the Regional Housing Program in the amount of 261 million euros were raised at the donor conference in Sarajevo. The European Union has provided 230 million euros

• Implementation of the first wave of the Regional Housing Project in Serbia will commence in the fall of 2013.