With the CoR Secretary General in Brussels
At the Committee of the Regions in Brussels, the representatives of the Vojvodina European Office (VEO) in Brussels has a meeting with Jiri Burianek, Secretary General of the Committee of Regions (CoR), an institution that brings together representatives of regional and local authorities in the European Union. The Republic of Serbia, as a candidate country negotiating EU membership, has the status of an observer, and the VEO representatives in Brussels are entitled to monitor the CoR work.
Srđan Mačkić, Head of the VEO, informed the Secretary General about the activities undertaken by the provincial institutions on a daily basis in order to bring our country closer to full EU membership. Among others, both sides expressed their satisfaction with the cooperation so far, especially with the activity of the AP Vojvodina within the CoR Joint Consultative Committee and the Republic of Serbia, which was also hosted by Novi Sad in October 2017.
Special attention was paid to administrative capacity building in Vojvodina, i.e. 45 local self-governments in Vojvodina. One of the positive examples is the Specialised Programme “Regional Development through EU Funds” implemented by the European Affairs Fund of AP Vojvodina in cooperation with other provincial institutions and faculties. An agreement was made to assess the opportunities in the coming period so that the CoR could support this exceptional specialised programme to further improve the quality of training, i.e. facilitate the programme funding.
One of the topics was the further integration of the AP Vojvodina in regional frameworks through different formal and informal networks, all in order to facilitate better networking and prepare for the participation in future legislative procedures that are in the CoR competences.
In addition to the messages of good and even more dedicated cooperation in the future, a high-level meeting between the representatives of the Provincial Government and the Committee of the Regions was planned to take place in Brussels until the end of the year.