Belgrade/Sarajevo - In a series of workshops throughout the Western Balkan economies, Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) met today with Serbian authorities to discuss the needs and priorities of national administration related to the implementation of the South East Europe 20202 (SEE 2020) Strategy in the next three years. 

The event was opened by the Representative of the European Integration Office of Serbia, Ms. Marija Oros-Jankovic. She highlighted the importance of implementation of the South-East Europe 2020 Strategy for the improvement of regional cooperation in SEE. Ms. Oros-Jankovic stressed out that “the important prerequisite for the efficient implementation of the Strategy is the sense of ownership and commitment of the relevant national institutions. In this sense, these consultations will identify priority areas of interventions which will be further developed in Programming Document 2017-2019 and proposed for possible financing to the regional instruments of financial support”. 

“The aim of today’s meeting is to have a constructive dialogue with actors involved in the implementation of the SEE 2020 Strategy that will result in a comprehensive and realistic programming document, setting up priorities and activities for the upcoming period. Our main goal is to listen to the needs of national authorities, gather information on the progress made so far and check the planned measures against individual national realities, so we can come up with pragmatic and implementable solutions that are prioritized by each of the Western Balkans economies”, said RCC Deputy Secretary General, Gazmend Turdiu while opening the Workshop.

RCC presented the results from the last programming cycle, providing an overview of the current programming cycle within the SEE 2020 main areas of operations: skills and mobility, connectivity, competitiveness and cross-cutting issues.

The Belgrade Workshop is the fourth one in a series of similar events in six Western Balkan economies implementing the Strategy. Meetings in Podgorica, Tirana and Pristina already took place in the previous weeks, while the Belgrade Workshop is to be followed by the Skopje and Sarajevo, later this month.