Chairperson of the Committee on International Relations and Emigrants and Head of Permanent Delegation of the Parliament of Montenegro to Parliamentary Dimension of the Central European Initiative (CEI-PD) Mr Miodrag Vuković took part in the meeting of the General Committee on Political and Home Affairs of the CEI-PD, which was held in Ljubljana.
This year’s meeting was dedicated to the following topics: “EU prospects after Brexit”, “Macro-regional EU strategies”, “The Berlin Process – Paris-Balkan Summit“ and “The refugee and migrant crisis”.
The participants in the meeting were greeted on behalf of the host by Speaker of the Parliament of Slovenia Mr Milan Brglez. Furthermore, the introductory speech to participants was given by the European Commissioner for Transport Ms Violeta Bulc as well as the Head of Delegation of the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia Mr Branko Grims.
Addressing the participants in the meeting, Chairperson Vuković said that new times brought new challenges and unfortunately increasing, unknown until now, problems.
“As recently as yesterday, the main problem was the deep economic crisis which the Europe has also entered, and today that problem is not referred to as the problem number one of the European community, today the dominant problem is global terrorism, extremely alerting , and additionally the grown euro-sceptical political structures in certain member states”, sad Mr Vuković.
Head of Montenegrin Delegation Mr Vuković also pointed out that he believed that Brexit would not affect the enlargement process, which was also announced by the most important institutions within the EU.
“Negotiations with Montenegro are continuing, negotiations with Serbia have been opened, the attempts to consolidate the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina are serious, and the first Agreement between the EU and Kosovo has been signed. All of this indicates that Brexit will not be able to affect one such global orientation to enlarge Europe, to unite and to function as one complex but harmonised community of nations and states”, concluded Mr Vuković.
Speaking of significance of the Berlin Process for the countries of the Western Balkans, Mr Vuković said that the initiative, which was primarily aimed at economic growth, social progress, establishing relations at the highest level, reconciliation through stimulating the youth exchange in educational projects, represented a new, additional value in the EU integration process and offered a new chance to the region to become economically stronger, safer and more secure.
The CEI is the oldest regional initiative in the Central and Southeast Europe region. It exists since 1989 and has 18 member states. Those are: Albania, Austria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Czech Republic, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia and Ukraine.