Honoured Mrs. Fritz,

Honoured Mr. Kelly,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Dear interns,

I am always happy to meet young people because it is an opportunity to remember the much quoted fact that only some of us feel as true and a calling – that you are the future of the country. I would also like to add that you are the future of our institutions.

I am glad that the need to become even closer was recognised by our friends from the NDI with whom we have realised the Student Practice Programme for the second year in a row now. I would like to thank them for their support and excellent ideas.

You spent the last nine months in many of the Assembly’s services, with the parliamentary groups, we encouraged you to write monthly reports and a final joint research paper. I hope that the time spent here and the activities you took part in helped you find yourself in some of the segments of our work and that you might wish to tie your professional future to this institution. Maybe there is a new Veljko Odalovic among you, a new Gordana Comic, Tanja Ostojic, Milos Aligrudic – who are just some of your mentors (I apologise to those I did not mention) – which would make the effort worth while. I believe that there are among you a lot of those who will one day sit on these benches or be of strong professional help to future MPs.

Getting ready for a similar meeting with some students I found out, and I must admit was astounded by the fact than only 6% of young people in our country feel the need to join social activities which include political activities. That is why you are our dearest and best ambassadors. Please spread our invitation among your friends and colleagues to take a more active part in the creation of our society. Tell them that our youth, I’d like to add our committed youth, is necessary for the progress of our society.

Today, as we mark the end of a stage in your education through work and the beginning of work that never stops being educational, I would like to thank you and your mentors who followed your progress and assisted you, on the behalf of this institution. You had a lot to learn from each of them – about political context, the processes at the National Assembly, formal and informal facets of the life within this building and I hope this knowledge will ensure you a successful future.

I hope you have not come here just to leave but to one day return. The National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia will always welcome you with doors and heart wide open.

Thank you.