Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Prof. Dr Zarko Obradovic said that EU accession remains Serbia’s strategic goal, as does the strengthening of regional cooperation and the reform process aimed at improving the citizens’ living standards and strengthening the institutions in the country. He added that by 2020 Serbia will have harmonized its national legislation with the EU acquis and hopes that the EU would recognize Serbia’s readiness and speed up the pre-accession talks, especially during Bulgaria’s presidency of the EU council in the first half of 2018 and Romania’s in 2019.

“Without the Balkans, the EU cannot be complete, and our dedication to European integration in the wake of Brexit, shows that the EU does indeed have a future”, said Obradovic to his Romanian and Bulgarian colleagues.

Speaking about Kosovo-Metohija, the Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman said that for Serbia it is important that its stance be understood especially since it had taken a very brave step by signing the Brussels Agreement in 2013. He updated the guests on the state-of-play of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue stressing that the Albanian side has not established the Community of Serb Municipalities nor given any answer to the questions of the return of refugees, return of property, processing the crimes against civilians, etc. Obradovic said that there have also been some initiatives to change the way the Kosovo issue is dealt with in the UN and to include others in the talks such as the US and asked for understanding for Serbia’s position and stance on it.

Chairman Obradovic said that Serbia is very much interested in building an infrastructural network in the Western Balkans and improving cooperation in the sphere of energy production as areas of key importance for the attraction of investment and the economic development of the region.

Dzhema Grozdanova, Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria, said that the EU integration of the Western Balkans is a priority for her country. She said the EU member states expect two strategic documents to give the answer to the question of enlargement – strategy on the Western Balkans and progress of the enlargement procedure. She reminded the attending that Bulgaria does not endorse the EU accession of the Western Balkan countries en masse and strongly supports the realization of the regional projects arranged within the Berlin Process.

Cristian-Sorin Dumitrescu, Chairman of the Romanian Senate’s Foreign Policy Committee, said that stability in the Balkans is of national and regional interest and told the Serbian colleagues to believe in the European project because it is the only one for European countries. He also hopes that the final shape of the post-Brexit EU will be unveiled during Romania’s presidency of the EU Council, adding that Serbia’s EU accession is of national interest for his country.

The Serbian, Bulgarian and Romanian parliamentarians also spoke about cooperation in the field of transport, infrastructure and environmental protection under the auspices of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region, influence of the financial crisis in Greece on the economic crisis in Europe, Brexit fallout, migrant crisis and any combined efforts to its resolution by Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria, regional projects concerning transport infrastructure, energy and combating illegal migration, the Berlin Process and realization of cross-border cooperation projects.

The first trilateral meeting of the Bulgarian, Romanian and Serbian parliamentary committees on foreign affairs/policy was held in October 2015 in Sofia.