BULGARIA HOSTS THE MEETING OF STATE LEADERS AND FOREIGN MINISTERS FROM SOUTHEAST EUROPE

Bulgaria is the host of the meeting of state leaders and foreign ministers from South-East Europe.

The forum starts on 31st of May in the town of Pravets and is part of the concluding activities of Bulgaria’s chairmanship of the South-East European Cooperation Process (SEECP). The one-year-term of Bulgaria as a chair of the SEECP concludes on 30th of June 2016.

Bulgaria is the initiator of the establishment of SEECP in 1996 with the purpose to encourage constructive dialogue and cooperation in the region. SEECP covers the entire region and the latest member to join the Process was Kosovo, in 2014.

Under the motto “SEECP – A Key to Regional Cooperation over the Past 20 Years”, on 1st of July 2015 Bulgaria officially assumed the Chairmanship of the Process for one year (1st of July, 2015 –30th of June, 2016). This is the third time the country chairs the SEECP (1996-1997 and 2008-2009).

During the chairmanship, Bulgaria has focused efforts on three priority areas: connectivity – transport and energy structure; media freedom and freedom of expression; migration and handling refugee flows. Another major priority was the principle of continuity in the work of SEECP and continuing some of the initiatives of the previous chair Albania.

Within the rotational chairmanship during a series of meetings and formats, the Bulgarian representatives headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Daniel Mitov emphasized on the necessity of higher competition and diversification of the energy sector, which would lead to a reduction in the prices of energy resources for the end consumers. To achieve this however, there is a need of collective will and common actions by all countries in the region. The same approach should be established towards migration and refugee flows, for which cooperation and common actions are also needed.

Bulgarian chairmanship of SEECP is led by the understanding that the integration processes, reforms and democracy on the continent are not a special “patent” of Western Europe and they would not have been complete without the participation of the countries in the Balkans. Therefore, together we need to support the processes of hard reforms and European-Atlantic integration in the countries of the Western Balkans and South-East Europe. We should think in plural more often because the nature of the current challenges before the region supposes coordination and joint solutions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted.

At the meeting of the state and government leaders on 1st of June in Sofia, Bulgaria will hand over the chairmanship to Croatia, but remains an active participant in the format “Troika”.

The participants who confirmed attendance at the meeting include: the President of Albania, Bujar Nishani; the President of Moldova Nicolae Timofti; the President of Croatia Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović; the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bakir Izetbegović; the President of Montenegro Filip Vujanović; the President of Kosovo Hashim Thaci; the President of the Republic of Macedonia Gjorge Ivanov; the Prime Minister of Romania Dacian and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of foreign affairs of Slovenia Karl Erjavec.

The meeting will be attended by the OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier and Secretary-General of the Regional Cooperation Council Goran Svilanović, as well as representatives of the European institutions.

A jubilee declaration on the achievements of the Process in the past two decades will be adopted at the event. Joint activities for the future development of the region are a special emphasis of the document.

On 31st if May, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov will host a meeting of his regional counterparts. This will include the foreign ministers of Greece, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania and the Republic of Macedonia.

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