The Forum was organised by the Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability CRTA with the support of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, UK Embassy in Belgrade, US Agency for International Development (USAID), Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC), OSCE Mission and the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
The forum was attended by international, regional and domestic experts, representatives of civil society organisations, the media and MPs.

Opening the Forum, Dr Nebojsa Stefanovic, National Assembly Speaker said that the freedom of speech is one of the fundamental values of a democratic society which is consistently cultivated at the National Assembly because it is an essential tenet of a representative democracy. Presenting the steps recently taken toward increasing the transparency of the National Assembly, Stefanovic said that a live-stream system was introduced in May enabling the citizens to watch live Internet broadcast of plenary sessions, committees sittings and all other events important for the Parliament’s work. He added that an integrated communication system via multimedia devices was also presented recently allowing the citizens access to the Parliament’s archive.

The participants of the forum were addressed by US Ambassador Michael D. Kirby and Lord Speaker of the UK House of Lords Baroness Frances D'Souza who greeted the participants via a video message. The participants were also addressed by UK Embassy in Belgrade Charge d’Affaires David McFarlane and the Director of the Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability Vukosava Crnjanski Sabovic.

In the first panel – Parliament and civil society organisations – representatives of the citizens toward an open parliament, the participants were addressed by Dr Ruth Fox, Director of Hansard Society, UK, Edward Wood, Director of the Public Information Sector, House of Representatives, UK Parliament, Andrew G. Mandelbaum, senior officer, Washington National Democratic Institute, Dragan Koprivica, Director of the Centre for Democratic Transition, Montenegro, Srdjan Milic, Montenegrin MP and Zoran Babic, MP at the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia.

The panellists in the second panel, dedicated to the relationship between the parliament and media, were Peter Knowles, journalist, editor, BBC, UK, (video message) and Gregor Hackmack, founder of Parliament Watch, Berlin, as well as Miodrag Popovic, advisor to the Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia and Nikola Tomic, journalist, editor, Danas daily newspaper, Serbia.

In the third panel – Parliament and new technologies – how to communicate with the citizens, the participants of the forum were addressed by Dr Andrew Williamson, Director of Future Digital, UK, Zoran Stanojevic, journalist, editor, RTS, Julia Keserű, coordinator of the international programme The Sunlight Foundation, USA and MPs Bojana Bozanic, Dr Dusan Milisavljevic and MA Vladimir Cvijan.


At the end of the forum, the participants adopted Conclusions titled How to improve the communication between the citizens and the parliament?

You can watch the Forum – Citizens, Media, Parliament:
Part one
Part two
Part three
Part four