First Conference on European Integrations Held
Miljenko Dereta, Civic Initiatives Executive Director, said in his opening address that the conference was led by the idea that `Serbian knows, from experiences of other countries, how to go through the necessary changes on the road to the EU`. Dereta emphasized that exchange of knowledge and experience with candidates and member-states was the main goal of the project. `I expect for the levels of knowledge and awareness of opportunities for cooperation between NGOs, public administration and media to rise, together with an initiation of public debate, exchange of information and good practices related to EU integration processes`, said Dereta and noted that association process touches on all segments of life and the dialogue is necessary to avoid the Government and political elites to adopt EU integrations as their exclusive right. Tanja Miščević, Director of Government Bureau of European Integrations, said that the Government was expected to adopt the National Programme for EU Integration and added that, lamentably, there were no institutionalized relations between the Government of Serbia and the civil society. `I don`t have the ready made solutions how to fix that situation, but we are open for advice, including advice coming from our neighbours, because there is a lot that we could learn`, added Miščević, explaining that the goal of the cooperation was to recognize the civil society in Serbia not just as participant, but a stake-holder in the EU integration processes, which doesn`t mean just membership but also the reforms that will lead to membership. Pero Belišić from Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integrations said that Croatia set a wide negotiating structure, including the Government-created National Forum for EU integration, in the process of EU association that included the non-governmental sector. He noted that, at this moment, 60% of the population support EU membership, while 38% are opposed. The Conference is a part of a wider CIDEC Programme (Citizen Dialogue for European Consensus), implemented by Civic Initiatives in cooperation with the EU Integration Fund of the European Commission Delegation to Serbia. (For additional information on the conference, visit the web-site of Civic Initiatives CIDEC programme) |
Printable version
Back to top
