Committee Chairperson Aleksandra Djurovic believes it necessary to choose visits more responsibly, noting that visits of National Assembly delegations which take active part in the work of interparliamentary organisations and the activities relating to Euro-integration must take precedence.

“The Committee must take a more definite stance when choosing and funding the visits of National Assembly delegations. That is why in preparation for this item on the agenda we conducted research into the practices of European parliaments which has shown that many countries much wealthier than Serbia are far more restrictive i.e. that their parliaments do not fund the exchange of visits between parliamentary friendship groups”, said the Committee Chairperson.

National Assembly Secretary General Jana Ljubicic, who attended the Committee sitting, said that the funds in the Assembly budget ear-marked for the visits of parliamentary friendship groups this year have already been spent.

“If we continue to fund these visits, we will jeopardise the realisation of regular, priority activities – the activities of the standing delegations. Therefore, as the person responsible for the disposal of Assembly budget funds, I ask your Committee to take a stance on how to fund the exchange of visits of parliamentary friendship groups in future and propose that the relevant committee rule to limit the funding of these visits for the remainder of the fiscal year”, said Ljubicic.

The Committee members unanimously adopted the following Conclusion:

1. The Foreign Affairs Committee proposes that the Committee on Administrative, Budgetary, Mandate and Immunity Issues make the decision to limit the exchange of visits of parliamentary friendship groups for the remainder of 2015.
2. The limitation of visits mentioned in item 1 of the Conclusion should be imposed when the National Assembly is to fund their realisation from the Assembly budget.
3. This Conclusion is submitted to the Committee on Administrative, Budgetary, Mandate and Immunity Issues, National Assembly Speaker and National Assembly Secretary General.

The Committee members went on to adopt several initiatives for upcoming visits, note the regular activities of the National Assembly’s standing delegations and adopted reports on visits and contacts realised in the previous period.

The sitting was chaired by Committee Chairperson Aleksandra Djurovic.