On July 6th, 2010, Civic Initiatives, in cooperation with the Belgrade Agency for Cooperation with NGOs, hosted a presentation of the recently enacted Law on Volunteering. Representatives of more than 70 CSOs participated in the event. The Law introduces three category of volunteer activities: the long term, the short term, and the ad hoc volunteer ones.
For a host organization which seeks to engage in the long term or the short term volunteerism, it prescribes a number of requirements it must meet to that effect, including signing a written agreement with a volunteer, entering into the registry of volunteer organizations, which is run by the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, and submitting the annual report on volunteer activities to the same Ministry. A host organization in breach of the foregoing requirements is subject to draconian fines.
ECNL outlined the major features of the Law, and pointed to the fact that it overall treats volunteerism as a labor relationship, rather than a private citizens' initiative. As a result, it renders the costs of volunteer activities prohibitively expensive for the host organization. He also suggested a number of liberal interpretation of the critical provisions in the Law, which will hopefully alleviate the burden for the host organizations imposed by the Law.