In his introductory address, Srdjan Majstorovic, Deputy Director of the European Integration Office, said that the seminar aims to give the MPs a general overview of the negotiations process and present the National Assembly’s potential role in the European Union accession process. He drew attention to the excellent cooperation between the Office and the National Assembly, stressing that the legitimacy of the entire process hinges on the National Assembly’s participation. Majstorovic also spoke of the need to promote the necessity for consensus as regards defining the desired date.
Mojmir Mrak, expert of the German Academy for International Cooperation (GIZ), briefed the participants of the seminar on the chief characteristics of the European Union accession process. Mrak spoke of the evolution of the enlargement process, Copenhagen criteria, the two segments of the process and the ties between them, as well as the key challenges for the candidate country.
GIZ expert Andrej Engelman spoke about the key characteristics of the pre-accession talks, stages of the process, conceptualisation principles of the negotiations structures, key institutions of the candidate country necessary for successful talks and the key players on the European Union side.
In the course of the discussion the MPs were mostly interested in specific examples about how the National Assembly and its committees can contribute to speeding up the Euro-integration process.
The seminar was co-organised by the European Integration Office and GIZ, as part of the project “Support of Serbia’s European integration process”.