President of the Parliament of Montenegro and President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Mr Ranko Krivokapić stays in an official visit to Romania upon the invitation of the Speakers of both houses of the Romanian Parliament Mr Valeriu Zgonea and Mr Crin Antonescu.

On this occasion, Mr Krivokapić was presented with the Medal of Romanian People, the most significant acknowledgement of the Romanian Parliament, awarded only to the highest state officials, and this was the first time that it had been awarded to a statesman from the Balkans.

In the field of parliamentary cooperation, both houses of the Romanian Parliament pointed emphasised their strong support to the programme of presidency over OSCE in the key period of its transformation, as well as their support to the President Krivokapić. They also pointed out the good cooperation existing between the two parliaments within the regional initiatives, the members of which were both Montenegro and Romania, with special emphasis on finding a possibility of stronger parliamentary networking of the Balkans region within OSCE, but also the South East Europe Cooperation Process, the initiative presided over by Romania.

Within his visit, Mr Krivokapić also had meetings with the President of Romania Mr Traian Băsescu, and the First Vice President of the Government of Romania in charge of defence Mr Gabriel Oprea.

It was pointed out at the meetings that Romania was a strong supporter of the Euro-Atlantic integration of Montenegro, and the interlocutors also exchanged experiences in the field of the rule of law and the fight against organised crime. At the meeting with the President Zgonea, the thing that was especially pointed out was new legal solution in the field of judiciary, which Romania had adopted in cooperation with the European Union, preventing intentional errors of judges in rulings in order for the offenders to avoid sentencing.

At the same level they also spoke on the work of the recently formed parliamentary and the government commission examining the enormous damage that Romania had suffered because only 54km of the highway had been built, costing 1.2 billion euro, while it had been laid out in the contract that 400km should be built, for the total amount of 2 billion euro. Those experiences were especially significant for Montenegro which was in the middle of the negotiations for building a highway. The Romanian officials also expressed a desire to stimulate investment activities of their companies in Montenegro thought joint commission for economic cooperation, which should meet in the first half of the following year.