The Green Budgeting Working Group of Serbia, comprising up to fifteen dedicated experts from the green budgeting working group of Serbia, has successfully concluded an intensive, hands-on capacity building workshop in Novi Sad. Organized under the EU4Green project and led by Green Finance Coordinator Olga Zhminko, in close collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Austria (BMF), this one and a half-day event marked another milestone in aligning national financial planning with the Green Agenda.

The workshop brought together representatives from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, the Ministry of Mining and Energy, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management. Following the publication of Serbia’s green budgeting methodology in December 2024, and Serbian implementation of climate budget tagging thereafter, this session provided practical continuity for the official working group. With a strong focus on “learning by doing,” the participants engaged directly with actual green projects and climate tagging methodologies, guided by the invaluable insights and international experience shared by expert practitioners from the Austrian Ministry of Finance (BMF) and the Environment Agency Austria (EAA/UBA).

Over the course of the intensive sessions, the working group has collected ideas for further elaboration of the green budgeting methodology in Serbia for achieving improved outcomes. The experts discussed challenges in verification and validation of green projects and learned about possible different approaches to climate tagging, enhancing the analysis. The joint efforts resulted in concrete recommendations for harmonizing the interpretation of criteria and ensuring that future national funding is systematically directed toward greening the economy and generating measurable environmental impact.