The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection considers the yesterday's statement issued by Jadranka Joksimovic, the Minister for European integration, in which she comments on the Commissioner's statement, inadequate in public communication of two responsible state officials.

Without any wish to continue the polemic in that way and on that level, the Commissioner still considers his duty to point out to certain facts on the occasion of her statement, for the purposes of the public.

With regard to that, the commissioner Rodoljub Sabic has stated the following:

"It is true that on the 28th September, hosting the conference on the occasion of The International Right to Know Day and answering journalists' questions, among other things, I expressed regret for the poor state of the Action plan for Chapter 23 in the negotiations with the EU and that in that context I said that it is evident that we would not open the negotiations with Chapters 23 and 24, although it had been done by "all the other countries".

I used the expression "all" to indicate the great majority, rule, trend or tendency, as it is often done. But, although being a rule, written into the strategic documents of the EU that negotiations commence by opening those fundamental chapters, in reality it is not always the case, as it is well-known. A well-intentioned someone would immediately understand this "imprecision". A more strict someone could recognize this as the subject of a fair critical observation. The Minister, however, did not opt for either, but estimated that it is a "good opportunity" for her to "inform" the Serbian public that the Commissioner is either "confused" or "ignorant" or "politicking".

I would have paid no attention to the Minister's disqualifying judgements, if it were not for the third one, saying that the Commissioner interferes in politics, which directly points to another attempt to compromise the position of independent control bodies by the well-known method of insinuating their "interference in politics".

It would have been much better if instead of those unfair insinuations we had heard the Minister's views on open questions of "planning" with regard to the Action plan for Chapter 23.

Towards the end of 2012, the passing of amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance was planned. The bill had already been in the Parliament. It was withdrawn and never returned. Then, the bill was planned for May 2014, the draft law for June 2014 and the passing of the law for September 2014. It was not passed. Afterwards, in the first version of the Draft Action plan it was planned for passing in the last quarter of 2015. Now, in the "final" version of the Action plan it is the second quarter of 2016!

The amendments to the Law on Personal Data Protection have been planned for long. A working group of the Government was formed back in 2012. The deadlines stated in the plans mentioned above were, firstly, the end of August, then, the second quarter of 2014. In the first version of the Draft Action Plan there was no longer any precise deadline stated, but it was "action planned" to be "specified later starting from the third quarter of 2015". Then the Commissioner, with the best of intentions to help, prepared a Model, or to be more specific, a complete draft of the new law on protection of personal data and made it available to the Government. One year has passed and we do not have the new law yet.

It has been emphasized a number of times in the Parliament's and the Government's documents as indispensable and crucial to "provide necessary financial and human resources to the Commissioner", but it has been postponed every time. In the final version of the Action plan the central point of "strengthening" is placed in the years 2018 and 2019. If I were ironic, I would say until the current Commissioner's term in office expires.

To conclude the list that could go on indefinitely by something I regard as the most important point and without which any serious improvement in the area of personal data protection is not realistic. It is the implementation of the Strategy on Personal Data Protection, for which The Action Plan for the implementation is a necessary presumption. The need and the deadlines for adoption of the Action plan have been confirmed in number of planning documents, but with no effect. They have been the subject of my talk with the Prime Minister recently, who has agreed to the fact that the Action plan is indispensable, and has announced to "enter accelerated procedure" with it.

It is incomprehensible, if it is not scandalous, that, in spite of that, this document that the Government is running five years behind with is not mentioned and is forgotten in the last version of the Action plan for Chapter 23.

Unlike the Minister, I will not label her, but she should know that many citizens will surely associate such kind of "planning" with confusion, ignorance and politicking.