Assistant Minister Marušić attends meeting of Adriatic-Ionian Initiative

On the occasion of Slovenia’s ending its one-year presidency over the Adriatic-Ionian Initiative, the Slovenian permanent representation to the EU in Brussels hosted a meeting of representatives of the initiative’s eight member states – Croatia, Slovenia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Greece, Italy and Serbia

On the occasion of Slovenia’s ending its one-year presidency over the Adriatic-Ionian Initiative, the Slovenian permanent representation to the EU in Brussels hosted a meeting of representatives of the initiative’s eight member states – Croatia, Slovenia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Greece, Italy and Serbia. The meeting was chaired by Slovenian Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec, while Croatia was represented by Assistant Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Hrvoje Marušić.

The representatives expressed belief that by end-2014 the initiative would grow into the Adriatic-Ionian macroregion, similar to the existing Baltic Sea and Danube macroregions.

Marušić said it was extremely important for Croatia that the Adriatic-Ionian macroregion strategy had been recognized as one of the EU enlargement intensification tools in which Croatia is sure to play one on the leading roles. “We have also managed to make energy one of the priority cooperation areas,” Marušić stressed.

In the final statement, the participants welcomed the conclusions from the summit held 13 and 14 December last year, when heads of the member states called on the Commission to draw up by the end of 2014 a strategy for the Adriatic-Ionian macroregion.

Macroregional approach is a new form of cooperation among neighbouring regions in the EU and beyond to better utilize the existing instruments such as structural funds, in other words to get “more bang for the buck” by synergizing different instruments and policies.

So far, the Baltic region and the Danube macroregion have been set up in 2009 and 2011 respectively.

The one-year presidency will be taken over by Albania. 

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