A meeting with Franco Iacop
The representatives of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Brussels held a meeting with Franco Iacop, CoR’s rapporteur on enlargement, i.e. representative of the Regional Council of Friuli Venezia Giulia, at the Brussels office of the Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia on 6 February 2019. Rapporteur Jacop is also co-chairing the Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) of the Republic of Serbia and the CoR.
Srđan Mačkić, Head of the Vojvodina European Office in Brussels, informed the rapporteur about the ongoing stable political and economic situation in AP Vojvodina, so as to provide additional information that could be used in preparing the following CoR, i.e. the Commission for Citizenship, Governance, Institutional and External Affairs’ (CIVEX) reports. The interlocutors also discussed the upcoming JCC session, which member Ognjen Bjelić, Provincial Secretary, was.
In addition to issues of relevance to the CoR, further initiatives regarding the cooperation between our two provinces were considered. Iacop said that it was necessary to re-establish the cooperation of the two regions at the strategic level in order to give new energy for cooperation in different fields, primarily in the fields of agriculture, energy, environment protection, tourism and culture. Moreover, the interlocutor pointed out that based on previous successful projects between the University of Udine and the Faculty of Agriculture in Novi Sad, the two sides could cooperate on a number of projects through different European networks. The two parties made an agreement to discuss the opportunities for new joint initiatives in more detail in the following period.
The Head of the Vojvodina European Office in Brussels invited the delegation of Friuli-Venezia Giulia to visit the forthcoming International Agricultural Fair in Novi Sad, and informed his interlocutor about the needs for further building the administrative capacities in AP Vojvodina, and in order for Friuli-Venezia Giulia to contribute to the Specialised Programme “Management of Regional Development through EU Funds”, which was implemented by the European Affairs Fund of AP Vojvodina.
