National Assembly Speaker Nebojsa Stefanovic thanked Finland for its assistance in Serbia’s Euro-integration process, stressing that he hoped that Serbia would be granted a date to begin negotiations with the European Union in June and deeming that Serbia had met the requisites to commence negotiations.
Stefanovic shared his high regard for Finland’s contribution to Serbia’s reaching its European goals and informed the guests on the legislative activity, especially that relating to the harmonisation of national and European legislation i.e. adoption of systemic laws such as the Public Procurement Law, which contribute to the new parliamentary legislation and Government’s strategic goals – fighting corruption. Declaring the intensity of said fight considerable, Stefanovic added that such an attitude toward corruption helps Serbia meet yet another strategic goal – attraction of foreign investment by creating the climate and conditions for safe business dealings in Serbia.
Bilateral cooperation is one of the Parliament’s priorities, especially via the committees, as is the Parliament’s openness and control role as regards the executive, stressed Stefanovic, adding that the development of the Assembly’s capacities, especially the committees’ work, should be achieved by adopting other parliaments’ experiences, such as the Finnish.
As one of the Parliament’s roles in bilateral cooperation Stefanovic underlined the stimulation of economic cooperation with other states via international activities, while, according to him, Finnish investors might find the agricultural, energy and infrastructure economic priorities interesting.
The Chair of the Finnish Parliament’s European Affairs Committee, Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, stressed that the Finnish Parliament has a tradition of supporting and assisting the parliaments of European Union candidate states. She shared her pleasure at the successful programmes that Finland takes part in, as well as the level of bilateral i.e. parliamentary relations between the two countries, adding that a Serbian parliamentary delegation is expected to visit Finland very soon.
The Finnish delegation was especially interested in the position of women in the Serbian Parliament and their general involvement in political life.
Speaker Stefanovic informed the delegation that a third of the MPs are women and some of the most important Assembly committees are headed by female representatives of the position and opposition. On the other hand, Stefanovic deemed that there is still room to further strengthen the influence of women in the Parliament itself and the political life of the country, listing some positive examples.