Senior official Ciamba highlights essential role of regional co-operation at SEECP meeting

Secretary of State for Euro-Atlantic Bilateral and Strategic Affairs with the Romanian Foreign Ministry (MAE) George Ciamba, on Tuesday participated in the summit of South East Europe Co-operation Process (SEECP) heads of government at Brdo-pri-Kranju, Slovenia, organised by Slovenia as holder of the organisation's chairmanship in office.

MAE says in a press statement that the agenda of the meeting focused on recent developments in South-East Europe and assessing the state of the European and Euro-Atlantic integration processes of the aspirants.

"In his speech, George Ciamba highlighted the particular relevance of the process to the development of the region, more than 20 years in existence, highlighting the remarkable progress that marked a gradual return to respect for human rights, tolerance and prosperity. At the same time, he stressed that Romania's fundamental foreign policy objective towards South-East Europe is to ensure that the entire region becomes part of the European and Euro-Atlantic bodies, a subject that will also be present on Romania's agenda as the holder of the presidency of the Council of the European Union," according to MAE.

At the same time, Ciamba welcomed the recommendations made by the European Commission in a communication on the Enlargement Policy, released on April 17, which underlines the need to observe European values and principles for advancing to a closer relationship with the EU.

Ciamba reconfirmed the essential part of regional cooperation as a key instrument of European accession efforts, having the ability to design common standards and values in the region, while highlighting Romania's attention to the developments of Moldova, as well as the necessity of providing more substantial support to the sincere European aspirations of Moldova, in order to strengthen security and prosperity in the European neighborhood, according to MAE.

During the meeting, a declaration of the SEECP Summit in Brdo-pri-Kranju was debated and adopted that recorded an agreement on the appointment of the future secretary general of the Regional Cooperation Council for the period 2019-2020 and the exercise of the future SEECP CiO for the period 2018 -2020.

The SEECP summit is the main political forum of the SEECP, organised annually at the end of a CiO. Slovenia held the office SEECP CiO in 2017-2018. The South-East European Co-operation Process is an informal regional co-operation body established in 1996 at the initiative of Bulgaria that brings together countries of South-East Europe. AGERPRES (RO - author: Madalina Cerban, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Rodica State)