Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia Ivica Dacic delivered today in Pancevo keys to a prefabricated house to the 1000th end-user of the Regional Housing Programme in Serbia.

Minister Dacic, as Chair of the Commission for coordinating the process of permanent refugee integration, delivered the keys to Ms Milosava Gnjatovic, who received the house under the Subproject 2 of the Regional Housing Programme.

Minister Dacic underlined that so far over EUR 100 million was earmarked for the settlement of the issue of housing for refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia in Serbia.

"Yesterday we had a meeting of the RHP Steering Board when a further EUR 19 million was allocated for the resolution of this issue. The EU is the largest donor, but also participating are states such as the U.S., Germany, Italy. Furthermore, the whole process is overseen and assisted by the OSCE Mission, UNHCR and the Council of Europe Development Bank."

Minister Dacic thanked the donors and invited them to continue their cooperation, seeing that there were 7000 more families with the issue of housing still unresolved.

Minister Dacic recalled that works were underway at several locations in Serbia, reiterating that over EUR 100 million was set aside towards the resolution of this problem and expressed his hope that in the following several years housing would be provided to other persons with refugee status.

Minister explained that these were in fact non-refundable grants, noting that the state authorities were addressing this issue together with local authorities in several ways, by building flats, houses as well as distributing construction material and granting pieces of land.