Members of the National Assembly standing delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Prof. Dr Zarko Obradovic and Dubravka Filipovski took part in the debate.

Prof. Dr Zarko Obradovic pointed out that the Western Balkans region is in every aspect a part of Europe, and that the countries of the region border the members of the European Union. "All the countries of the Western Balkans want to be members of the EU, but in the past two decades, little progress has been made as regards the integration of the region into the EU. Part of the responsibility lies with the Western Balkan countries themselves, which have failed to demonstrate willingness to reform their societies quickly or resolutely enough. But most of the responsibility lies with the institutions of the European Union and the policies pursued by individual EU members," Prof. Dr Obradovic concluded.

Dubravka Filipovski said that the countries of the Western Balkans need EU membership, but that the EU also needs the Western Balkans. "Serbia is committed to seeing the Four Freedoms of the European Union implemented in the region as soon as possible through the "Open Balkans" project," Filipovski stressed.

In the course of the four-day the session, the members of the standing delegation took active part in the work of the Parliamentary Assembly, both in its working bodies and in the plenary session. Delegation member Zoran Tomic took part in the discussions "Socio-economic inequalities in Europe" and "Anchoring the right to a healthy environment", while Elvira Kovacs had questions for the Chair of the Committee of Ministers Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjarto and North Macedonia’s Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Dimitrov.