Dear colleagues,

Dear Goran,

Ladies and gentlemen,

On behalf of the Albanian Chairmanship-in-Office of the Southeast European Cooperation Process (SEECP), I would like to welcome you all in Tirana for this Annual Meeting of the Regional Cooperation Council.

SEECP and its operational arm, the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) share common overarching goal:

• First and foremost to strongly support the full-accession to the EU and Euro-Atlantic structures.

This can only be achieved through a set of common, daily, objectives:

• Enhancement of regional cooperation,

• Promotion of good neighbourly relations,
• Enhancement of security, stability and development,
• and last but not least, the Consolidation of the sectorial relevance and the regional ownership of our cooperation instruments.

Dear participants,

We have considered our Chairmanship-in-Office of the SEECP as an opportunity to boost our efforts to transform the South East Europe into a region of peace and stability.

During Albania’s C-i-O, in collaboration with the RCC we implemented an ambitious calendar of activities and I would like to mention here:

• The Ministerial Conference on Justice and Home Affairs
• High-level Conference on Good Governance and Anticorruption Policy Challenges
• Regional workshop on Networks of Excellence

Alongside the events anticipated in our C-i-O calendar, these activities contributed in strengthening the cooperation between our countries in areas that had not been necessarily explored so far.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Albania pays particular attention to the completion of the integration processes of South-East European countries into the Euro-Atlantic structures.

We should sustain our efforts and determination to strengthen the solidarity in the region and the RCC has shown it can contribute substantially to this end.

In the course of last year, we have witnessed that the aspirants are moving forward in their path towards the EU.

In addition, the Berlin Process has re-invigorated economic integration and better cooperation of the countries of the Western Balkans in priority areas such as energy, transport and infrastructure.

We are all too well aware that better infrastructure and interconnectivity are key drivers of economic growth for all our countries.

In this context, I am happy to report that during our C-i-O, we managed to create synergies between SEECP and other regional platforms, such as the Western Balkans 6. We trust the Bulgarian C-i-O and RCC will jointly work to sustain this positive synergy.

However, we believe that the good will to cooperate and the synergies created need to translate in better coordination.  The current regional cooperation set-up is somehow overburdened by dozens of cooperation initiatives.

It may be about time to spend our energies efficiently and think of smart mechanisms and instruments so that we reinforce regional initiatives which have born fruits and added significant value to our regional cooperation. It is the time to make some choices.

We are living in the world where “domestic” and “foreign” dimensions have been blurred and where global and regional issues increasingly affect our citizens more directly.

This requires more flexible and multiple channels of collaboration: we need stronger parliamentary backing, but we also need to involve other non-state actors, civil society and professional communities in the process of regional integration.

On Saturday, the First Regular Meeting of SEECP Parliamentary Assembly will take place, from which we expect important decisions, on closer cooperation between the parliaments of the region, based on all-inclusiveness.

Today, Mr. Svilanovic will present us the “Annual Report on Regional Cooperation in South East Europe”.

 

It contains reflections on the most important developments related to the regional cooperation in South east Europe (SEE) and on the implementation of the RCC Strategic Work Program 2014-2016.

It also touches upon the benefits of the synergy and coordination between the South East Europe Cooperation Process (seecP) and the rcc and presents the state of institutional relations of the rcc participants with the eu.

We hope it will shed light into the opportunities and challenges of our region in areas such as natural and human resources and sketch ways out of these challenges, with a view to elaborate and develop joint projects.

We look forward to your discussion today and the subsequent conclusions.

I am confident that today’s meeting will provide some fresh impetus for our joint efforts to keep our region on the Euro-Atlantic track.

Thank you for your attention!