Today at the National Assembly House, the Speaker of the National Assembly, Prof. Dr Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic opened a regional gathering entitled “Social Dialogue in the Regions – Regions in Dialogue”, organised by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. The topic of the gathering was establishing proper social dialogue in the South European countries, and its participants were the representatives of employers, unions and chambers of commerce, as well as politicians on the national and regional level.

Greeting the participants, Assembly Speaker Djukic-Dejanovic stressed that the main goal of the gathering is further improvement of democracy, and democracy thrives on the citizens’ and their interest organisations’ active dialogue, including the widest possible social segments.

The transformation of social reality starts at the bottom, from the lowest levels of state and social community organisation, from local through regional forms of affiliation, to the parliamentary level of organisation and decision-making, Assembly Speaker Djukic-Dejanovic pointed out. She said that the citizens should be motivated to administer and resolve their own fate, as well as to make the best possible decisions locally which will influence the quality of their lives. By doing this they exhibit one of the European Union’s basic principles in practice, the principle of subsidiarity, which enables a dialogue of the responsible factors on all the levels of society.

According to her, the continuation of dialogue among all the factors involved in this project should present important ideas and goals of further work, in order to deepen the erstwhile dialogue among the regions and their social partners.

The National Assembly Speaker expressed her expectation that on the basis of the dialogue of responsible factors on the regional level today, exchange of ideas and ample experience, this gathering will jointly reach conclusions useful for future work.