Stojmirovic congratulated Antonione on his election for new CEI Secretary General and praised his initiative to begin his mandate by visiting the member states to learn more about their circumstances and challenges. Stojmirovic said that Serbia, i.e. the former Yugoslavia, was one of the founding members of CEI and as such duly performs its duties and takes active part in the work of the organization’s parliamentary dimension.

“That is our duty as a founding member, as well as a country that realizes many projects funded by CEI”, said Stojmirovic.

He went on to say that Serbia is committed to EU accession and thanked CEI for its support of these efforts.

The newly-appointed CEI Secretary General Roberto Antonione stressed that CEI greatly values its parliamentary dimension and the organization is ready to help improve the cooperation between its all the member states. He said that CEI will continue to support Serbia’s path to the EU and make an effort to speed up the process.

“Serbia is the key country and factor of stability in the Balkans, and the Balkans is a part of Europe, and as long as the Balkan countries are not part of the European community, we will strive to support the accession process”, said Antonione.

The Head of the National Assembly’s standing delegation to CEI PD and the new CEI Secretary General also spoke about promoting cooperation in the field of education, as well as about the current problems in the EU which are slowing down Serbia’s progress to accession such as the Brexit fallout, migrant crisis, Venezuela situation and the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina.