The meeting was chaired by Branko Zorman, member of the Slovenian National Assembly, and was attended by the delegations of Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Moldova, Greece, Slovenia, Turkey and Montenegro and representatives of Pristina.

The attending deliberated on the Proposal of the Final Declaration prepared by the Slovenian chairmanship to which the other delegations submitted amendments. The National Assembly’s amendments were accepted after Laketic’s presentation. Following a comprehensive discussion, the participants formulated the text of the final declaration which is to be submitted for adoption to the heads of parliament at the SEECP PA Plenary Session, on 13-14 April in Ljubljana. The participants of the meeting also adopted the draft programme, agenda for the SEECP PA Plenary Session and the Annual Plan for the period 1 July 2018 – 30 June 2019, noting that no official decision has been made on the who is to be the next chair. Bosnia and Herzegovina submitted an official nomination for the SEECP PA chairmanship.

The attending went on to discuss the outstanding issues of Secretariat seat and financing model in the course of which they voiced their views. They noted that four years later no consensus has been reached on the Secretariat seat. Laketic said that the National Assembly would endorse any solution stemming from a compromise between Sofia and Istanbul, the two candidates, noting that it opposes any changes to the Rules of Procedure as that would not lead to any good or comprehensive solution. Consensus should remain the most basic tenet of decision-making in the SEECP Parliamentary Assembly, concluded Laketic.

As a result of the discussion the Chair, with the consent of all the attending, asked Bulgaria and Turkey to speak on the proposed five-year rotating Secretariat seat and under what conditions they would consider it acceptable. He also asked all the interested parliaments to declare a possible nomination for SEECP PA chairmanship by 6 April.

At the margins of the meeting, Standing Committee member Laketic had a number of bilateral meetings. He agreed on concentrated efforts and support regarding open issues concerning the work of the SEECP Parliamentary Assembly with the BiH and Romanian parliamentary delegations.