Member of the Permanent Delegation of the Parliament of Montenegro to the South-East European Cooperation Process Ms Žana Filipović and substitute member Ms Snežana Jonica took part in meetings of general committees - Standing Committee and Plenary Session of the SEECP PA, held in Sofia, on 10 and 11 June, within the presidency of the Republic of Bulgaria of this initiative.

This year’s Plenary Session of the “SEECP PA”, chaired by Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria Mr Tsetska Tsacheva, was devoted to the topic: “SEECP – 20 Years Key to Regional Cooperation”.

At the plenary session, through participation of member states, the most important achievements of this organisation in the last two decades were emphasised, and in that regard, they particularly stressed that by establishment of the SEECP Parliamentary Assembly in May 2014 the cooperation of the regional countries was raised at higher level. They also expressed expectation that an agreement on the establishment of a permanent secretariat of the SEECP PA would be reached in the near future, which would give an additional impetus to the work of the Parliamentary Assembly.

The meeting was attended, inter alia, by: Mr Milan Brglez, Speaker of the Slovenian National Assembly, Mr Kadri Veseli, President of the Assembly of the Kosovo Republic, Mr Trajko Veljanoski, Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia, Ms Ayşe Nur Bahçekapili, Deputy Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of the Republic of Turkey and Mr Bariša Čolak, Deputy Speaker of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Joint Declaration was adopted at the SEECP Plenary Session as well as work plan for the upcoming one-year period, during the presidency of the Republic of Croatia.

Previously, at the meetings of the General Committee on Economy, Infrastructure and Energy, General Committee for Justice, Home Affairs and Security Cooperation and General Committee on Social Development, Education,
Research and Science, they agreed on topics for the next meetings of committees and discussed the candidacy of the Republic of Turkey, the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Kosovo for the presidency of these bodies.

At the meeting of the SEECP Standing Committee, the proposal by the representatives of the delegation of the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria to establish ad-hoc expert group for issues of legal status and budget of the future SEECP Secretariat was not adopted.

The next meeting of the SEECP Parliamentary Assembly will be held in Zagreb, in 2017.