After the General Staff, the Government of Serbia again passed two laws without consulting the profession, proving that it does not care about cultural heritage. And, architects, urban planners, conservators - the whole profession, demand that such laws be repealed
After in November 2024, the Government of the Republic of Serbia on its own initiative, without consulting the profession, revoked the status of a cultural monument to the General Staff complex, on January 16 of this year, the Government submitted two proposals to the National Assembly for adoption, which it also passed ignoring the profession.
And, the profession rebelled.
The Government of the Republic of Serbia and the Ministry of Construction have recently received two requests for the withdrawal of laws that they intend to propose to the Parliament of Serbia for adoption.
The National Committee of ICOMOS Serbia requests the Government of Serbia to withdraw the Proposal for the Law on Amendments to the Law on Planning and Construction, and in a separate request, about thirty professional faculties, associations, societies and organizations request the withdrawal of that law, as well as the Law on Amendments to the Law on Necessary Procedures for the Realization of the International Specialized Exhibition Expo Belgrade 2027.
The entire profession is calling for the withdrawal of the law
ICOMOS is the International Council for Monuments and Monumental Entities, a highly respectable non-governmental organization that includes Serbia among more than 100 countries, and deals with the protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world.
Among the thirty signatories of the second request is, one might say, the entire architectural, urban planning and conservation profession: Faculty of Architecture, Geography, Construction and Forestry, Association of Serbian Architects, Evropa Nostra, Institute of Architecture and Urbanism, Ministry of Space, ICOMOS, RERI, Academy of Architecture of Serbia, Association of Serbian Architects, Association of Conservators, Association of Urban Planners of Serbia, DokoMoMo Serbia, New Planning Practice...
The signatories ask the Government of Serbia to withdraw the proposals for amendments to the two mentioned laws, which they say were adopted "without previously organized public discussion and informing the professional and general public".
"This approach minimizes and ignores the importance of expert opinion and transparency in the process of making important decisions and legal acts, which is especially unacceptable considering the importance of the proposed laws, whose proposals require detailed analysis and broad public and professional discussion, as well as the potential damage that would result from their adoption."
At the same time, they call on the Assembly not to accept these Government proposals.
Laws are disastrous for cultural heritage
ICOMOS requests the withdrawal of the Amendments to the Law on Planning and Construction "which refer to the abolition of obtaining the opinion of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments", i.e. "the complete abolition of the need for the preparation of the Study of the Protection of Immovable Cultural Assets", because "they represent a gross abolition of legal mechanisms for the preservation of cultural heritage".
Namely, in paragraph 10 of the proposed Amendments, it is written that only the conditions of the authority responsible for the protection of immovable cultural assets shall be obtained for the buildings that the Government has determined to be of special importance for the Republic of Serbia.
"The introduction of paragraph 10 unambiguously gives legitimacy and priority to large-scale development policies - investment and infrastructural development projects, which by the nature of their activities represent a great threat and can bring irreparable consequences and endanger the value of immovable cultural assets and their surroundings, i.e. the cultural heritage as a whole," reads the explanation of the ICOMOS request.
It is also wrong, states ICOMOS, that in the proposed Amendments "the obligation to prepare a study for the protection of immovable cultural assets refers to objects within the boundaries of immovable cultural assets of exceptional importance and cultural assets entered in the List of World Cultural and Natural Heritage".
The state abolishes its institutions
On this occasion, they point out that "according to the ICOMOS guidelines, it has been necessary for years to prepare a Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) with the application of the appropriate methodology for assessing the potential impacts of changes or uncontrolled development, which threaten the attributes of outstanding universal value of the property on the List, and which proposes principles and methods for mitigating or limiting changes that may lead to serious threats to outstanding universal value (OUV)".
They state that "the preparation of the Protection Study represents the first line of defense of cultural heritage." It enables timely action through planning documents and prevents negative consequences and risks that may threaten cultural heritage"
"Ignoring institutions for the protection of cultural monuments and the opinions of experts, as well as omitting public discussions and informing the professional and general public about key changes to the Law on Planning and Construction, is an act of self-denial of one's own institutions."
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