Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), Hido Biscevic, took part in an informal meeting of ministers of foreign affairs of the South-East European Cooperation Process (SEECP), the Central European Initiative (CEI) and the Adriatic-Ionian Initiative (AII), held in New York yesterday at the margins of the UN General Assembly session.

The meeting was initiated by Vuk Jeremic, Foreign Minister of Serbia, the chair of the three initiatives.

The participants welcomed the exchange of views in this format. They stressed a need to strengthen cooperation and synergy among members of SEECP, CEI and AII, in circumstances of profound and deep changes of international agenda and developments in the region. This particularly refers to the ways the EU enlargement process will be shaped and translated into decisions concerning the aspiring countries in Western Balkans.

Special attention was paid to increasing economic cooperation in South East Europe in light of the current crisis and a long standing need to upgrade infrastructure and transport facilities in the region.

The participants agreed that a thorough approach is needed in discussing future structure and institutional shape of regional cooperation. Suggestions were made to set up an elaboration group to open a debate on the issue under the current Serbian Chairmanship-in-Office of regional cooperation initiatives. Initial inputs are expected to be based on RCC experience shared with the Serbian Chairmanship, with a view to prepare a set of ideas for further elaboration at forthcoming political meetings within the SEECP framework.