The Chairman of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, Predrag Markovic, today met the Speaker of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, Boris Grizlov. The Russian and Serbian parliament chairs agreed to broaden the competencies of the Friendship Committees of the Parliaments of Russia and Serbia and Montenegro, with a view to enabling co-operation with the parliament of the Republic of Serbia.

At the same time, Mr Grizlov expressed support for Mr Markovic’s proposal to form a ‘friendship table’ of Serbian and Russian parliaments, as good co-operation between these two institutions makes it easier and faster to implement signed accords.

Mr Markovic underlined the importance of adopting a new Serbian constitution, which would enable all accords between Russia and Serbia to be ratified by the Republic Assembly, and expressed his hopes that the constitution would be adopted soon if national consensus of all parliamentary parties was reached. Both parliamentary chairs expressed their satisfaction at the agreement reached by Russian and Serbian finance ministers to solve the issue of the 280-million-dollar debt between the two countries.

Mr Markovic took the opportunity of officially thanking Russia for its quick and substantial assistance to our country after the tragic events in Kosovo that took place between 17 and 21 March.

The meeting was also attended by chairpersons of the Assembly Foreign Affairs Committee, Gordana Comic, and the Committee on Economy and Privatisation, Milko Stimac, who acquainted the Russian delegation with the activities of their committees, stressing the need for more parliamentary co-operation at the committee level.