Deliblatska Sands: Who Proposed the Disputed Amendment
Serbia's parliament amended the Law on Planning and Construction on August 31 through an amendment filed just five days earlier. It came from a committee chaired by SPS lawmaker Ugljesa Markovic.
It is now known who proposed the amendment that opens the door to construction on forest land destroyed by fire, including in Deliblatska Sands. The sponsor was the parliamentary Committee on Spatial Planning, Transport, Infrastructure and Telecommunications, chaired by Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) lawmaker Ugljesa Markovic. The amendment was filed on August 26, five days before the National Assembly passed changes to the Law on Planning and Construction on August 31.
The details came from Stefan Janjic, secretary general of the Serbia Center organization, who described how the committee session unfolded. According to him, Markovic said at 12:11 pm that the draft amendment was posted on the e-parliament system, yet the text was not delivered to the parliamentary secretariat until 12:27 pm. The same session saw Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Aleksandra Sofronijevic give her consent, and the amendment was unanimously backed by the 12 committee members present.
What Article 88 Changes
The changes were adopted under a combined procedure covering 59 agenda items at once, with no prior public debate. The amendment concerns Article 88 of the law, which states that forest land whose forest was destroyed or damaged by fire keeps the purpose it had before the fire. Immediately after that provision, the same article sets out an exception: the purpose can still be changed if doing so is necessary to carry out a project of established public interest, or to build public infrastructure.
The provision on forest land did not appear in the government’s original draft, submitted to the Assembly on August 7. According to Transparency Serbia and the RERI organization, neither the text of the amendment nor its explanation was available on the National Assembly’s website.
There was no debate on the amendment itself. Janjic said Assembly Speaker Ana Brnabic cut off the debate on amendments once the session reached the chapter on the Law on Planning and Construction.
Dacic on Conspiracy Theories, Ruzic Had Warned Earlier
At the session, Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said that “irresponsible individuals are spreading lies and conspiracy theories about construction on destroyed land.” Janjic asked who Dacic meant, pointing out that Branko Ruzic, until recently an SPS member, had already warned on August 21 that the destroyed land in Deliblatska Sands might be repurposed instead of restored.
The vote coincided with the day officials announced that the Deliblatska Sands fire, which had burned for more than a month, was brought under control. While the fire was still raging, speculation spread that the destroyed land could be used for energy facilities. Mining and Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic denied those claims.
This outlet had previously reported that the new law opens the way for construction on burned land. It is now known when, and through whom, the provision entered the text, while the amendment’s explanation remains unavailable to the public.
