A delegation of the European Parliament, comprised of the head of the European Parliament’s Directorate on Relations with National Parliaments,Alain Barreau, and his associate Estelle Carrelet de Loisy, in charge of relations with Eastern European countries, is on a two-day working visit to the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia.

At Assembly House, the guests from the European Parliament were welcomed by the National Assembly’s Secretary, Marko Danilovic, and his associates. The meeting discussed issues relating to the design of co-operation and experience exchange programmes between the European Parliament and the National Assembly.

M Barreau underlined that his Directorate had also initiated a parliamentary co-operation and exchange programme aimed at improving and streamlining bilateral relations between the European Parliament and national parliaments. The programme is primarily designed to provide administrative staff at national parliaments with information about the EU, and help them establish priorities in their activities at the national level.

Each programme was prepared ad hoc, Barreau said, tailor-made to specific requests from national parliaments, and organised as a seminar further subdivided into themed sittings, which can be attended by anyone interested in the transfer of experiences – mainly through dialogue – between officials of national parliaments and the European Parliament.

Over the past two years the Programme has been implemented in all 25 EU member states, as well as in candidate countries for EU membership, Romania and Bulgaria. In 2007, the Programme is also scheduled to be implemented in other EU candidate countries and Serbia.

Mr Danilovic told the EU delegation of changes to the National Assembly’s activities after the independence referendum in Montenegro, which was followed by the Republic of Serbia assuming responsibilities previously held by the State Union. He said that implementing the co-operation programme between the European Parliament and the National Assembly in early 2007 would be useful.

Staff of the Human Resources Department of the National Assembly today met the EU delegation.