Secretary of State Ciamba holds consultations with Austrian Secretary General for Foreign Affairs Peterlik

Secretary of state with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) George Ciamba on Friday had consultations in Vienna with the Secretary General of the Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Austria, Johannes Peterlik, among other topics the two discussing collaboration in implementing and promoting the EU Strategy for the Danube Region.

The Romanian official hailed the good level of bilateral cooperation, while mentioning especially the economic relations, with Austria being the second foreign investor in the Romanian economy, reads a release of MAE to AGERPRES.

Moreover, he remarked the intensifying bilateral dialogue at the two ministries level, including in the context in which Romania will follow Austria at the presidency of the Council of the European Union next year.

"The Secretary of state remarked the positive role of the Romanian community, the second largest foreign community from the EU member states in Austria, and hailed its contribution to the economic and social development of the host country and its role of a bridge between the two states. In this context, he brought into talks the Austrian proposal of indexing allowances for children of European workers, while expressing Romania's concern that this measure could be seen as discriminatory and in violation of the community acquis," reads the release.

The two officials also tackled collaboration in implementing and promoting the European Union Strategy for the Danube Region, a common Romanian-Austrian regional initiative.

"Secretary of state Ciamba underscored thus the need to continue to promote on the EU agenda this macro-regional cooperation framework and stimulate concrete development projects in the Danube Region," says the release.

Moreover, he referred to the priorities of the future presidency of the Council of the European Union in the foreign affairs field, noticing the attention paid by both parties to the Western Balkans and their support for the expansion of the EU in the region, based on stability criteria.

"In this context it became clear the importance of coordination in ensuring an efficient transition from the Austrian presidency to the Romanian one, in such matters of interest. He also underscored the priorities that the European track of the Republic of Moldova and the Eastern Partnership represent for Romania, after 10 years since its launch, while underscoring Romania's and the EU's direct interest in a stable and prosperous vicinity. Other topics approached by the two high officials had to do with the future presidency of the Council of the European Union to be held by Romania in respect to the Policy for Security and Common Defence of the European Union and the Transatlantic relation, Secretary of state Ciamba highlighting the need of maintaining a solid Transatlantic relation and ensuring the EU-NATO complementarity," says the same release.

On the sidelines of the visit of the Secretary of state for bilateral and strategic affairs in the Euro-Atlantic space George Ciamba the Austrian side also organised a meeting for coordination with the heads of the diplomatic missions of Romania in the EU, NATO, OSCE and UN/Geneva on topics such as the modality of exercising the presidency of the Council of the EU at multi-lateral missions level and the security dimension in the current EU, NATO, OSCE and UN debates. AGERPRES (RO - author: Daniel Florea, editor: Claudia Stanescu; EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)