Minister Grabar-Kitarović, as the SEECP Chairman, held the opening presentation for the second agenda item on the co-operation process in South East Europe, the strengthening of regional co-operation and ownership, and the role of SEECP in the transformation of the Stability Pact.
Minister Grabar-Kitarović said that today, almost four years after the adoption of the Thessaloniki Agenda at the meeting of the EU and Western Balkans’ heads of state and government, which confirmed that the future of the countries in the region lies within the EU, we can conclude that the SEE countries have gone a long way on their road to full EU and NATO membership, developing at the same time a broad-scale regional co-operation.
In that regard, SEECP has affirmed itself as an authentic regional forum with the role of offering political guidelines for the co-operation in the region, said Minister Grabar-Kitarović. Intensive consultations on the development of a new structure for the regional co-operations are being conducted, co-ordinated by SEECP under Croatia’s chairmanship, the Stability Pact, European Commission and the international community. Activities conducted to that end under the auspices of SEECP show that the regional co-operation process is a good and positive orientation, said Minister Grabar-Kitarović.
She also pointed out that the Zagreb SEECP Summit in May this year will reach the necessary decisions for future regional co-operation, thus laying the foundations for further SEE regional co-operation to the benefit of all the countries and nations in the region, contributing at the same time to a joint European future.