For N. Macedonia, as a country whose main strategic goal is full-fledged membership in the European Union, it is very significant to be a part of and actively participate in regional cooperation processes and gather experiences and knowledge to implement within the Euro-integration process. As the Ancona Declaration states, enhanced regional cooperation is an effective incentive that is instrumental to fostering political and economic stability, thereby making it the most solid basis for progress in the European integration process, said Parliament Speaker AfrimGashi in his opening remarks Friday as the host of the 20th Conference of Presidents/Speakers of Parliaments of Adriatic-Ionian Initiative (AII) organized as part of the country’s chairmanship of the initiative.
Gashinotes that Macedonia is committed to European integration and does not deviate from it, but added that, unfortunately, throughout this process it faces a series of obstacles, which make the path even more difficult and uncertain, but that does not discourage us from giving up on European values and standards.
Secretary General of the Adriatic-Ionian Initiative, Ambassador Giovanni Castellaneta, emphasized that this conference is one of the key pillars of the Initiative because it emphasizes the importance of the parliamentary dimension.
Castellaneta adds that “today we are witnessing a phase in which multilateralism is once again on a thin line, but precisely for this reason regional cooperation is becoming more important than ever.”
The presence of presidents, vice-presidents and members of parliament from the member states of SEE – Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, Italy, San Marino, Serbia and Slovenia – has been announced for Friday’s conference.
