At the sitting held on 9 November, the Foreign Affairs Committee members interviewed the newly-appointed Ambassador of the Republic of Serbia to Australia Neda Maletic before her departure for diplomatic duty. The sitting was chaired by Prof. Dr Dragoljub Micunovic, Committee Chairman

Ambassador Maletic stressed that Australia is one of the most developed countries in the world which was not affected by the global economic crisis and whose economic cooperation mostly rests on China and India. She said that Serbia’s considerable diaspora in Australia comprises about 100 000 people, that trade with Australia is humble, as are political and parliamentary contacts, making the improvement of overall bilateral relations between Serbia and Australia a priority.

The Committee members endorsed the newly-appointed Ambassador’s action proposals and suggested that she put additional efforts into the liberalisation of the visa regime with Australia and assist the diaspora to gain Serbian citizenship more easily.

The Committee considered and accepted the Report on the international cooperation of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia in 2009.

The sitting also touched on the National Assembly’s parliamentary cooperation this year. The officials believe that the intensive cooperation achieved with foreign parliaments and international organisations and institutions failed to garner enough media attention. Delegation heads or deputy heads spoke of the activities of the National Assembly’s standing delegations to international parliamentary institutions, highlighting their chief efforts.

The Committee went on to accept the initiative to send National Assembly delegations to: the NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s annual session in Warsaw from 12 to 16 November, meeting of the Committee on the Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by Member States of the Council of Europe PA in Paris on 16 November, PACE Political Committee meeting on 18 November in Paris, PACE Foreign Affairs Subcommittee meeting in New York from 1 to 4 December, as well as the Western European Union’s Assembly session in Paris from 1 to 3 December this year. The also accepted the invitation extended to the National Assembly Speaker to visit Argentina.

The Committee endorsed the initiative to hold a regional seminar on HIV/AIDS in Belgrade on 6 December in cooperation with the Inter-Parliamentary Union, as well as the initiatives for the visits of the Austrian Parliament’s Friendship Group with Serbia at the beginning of December, Ukrainian Parliament’s Friendship Group with Serbia, as well as the visit of the Iranian-Serbian Friendship Group of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Committee also accepted the proposed activity plans for Serbia’s chairmanship over the Adriatic-Ionian Initiative in the June 2011-May 2012 period and Central European Initiative (CEI) in 2011. They also endorsed the initiative to hold the Third Regional Conference of parliamentary bodies monitoring security and intelligence services of South East European countries in Belgrade in the first half of 2011.

The Committee appointed Branko Ruzic head of the Parliamentary Friendship Group with Australia and accepted the additions to the parliamentary friendship groups with Italy, Norway and the Czech Republic proposed by the G17 Plus Deputy Group and with the Republic of Korea, proposed by the Democratic Party of Serbia Deputy Group.

At the sitting, the Committee members also accepted several reports on the parliamentary visits and contacts realised between the representatives of the National Assembly and foreign parliamentarians and diplomatic representatives.