On the behalf of the National Assembly, the participants of the conference were addressed by Prof. Dr Vladimir Marinkovic who declared parliamentary transparency one of the most important aspects of the work of the Parliament as an institution and the MPs themselves. He said that a lot has been done to promote the Parliament’s openness in the past three years, by the National Assembly has yet more ground to cover. Marinkovic believes that the trust in the Parliament and the MPs is on the rise, but not at an adequate rate.

“That is why it is important that the MPs open constituency offices to maintain constant contact with the citizens, hear their problems and champion their causes”, concluded Marinkovic.

Hellenic Parliament Secretary General Athanasios Papaioannou opined that the National Assembly had come a long way in the last two years, since the beginning of project “Strengthening the capacities of the National Assembly in the European integration process” which has so far given very good results.

“Transparency is a very important topic and I believe both parliaments (Greek and Serbian) have come a long way and can learn a great deal form one another”, said the Hellenic Parliament Secretary General.

In the course of the conference the experts from the Hellenic Parliament and Greek Government spoke about parliamentary transparency and visibility of parliamentary decisions, parliamentary transparency on the Internet, as well as transparency as a principle of better regulation and legislative drafting, before these are submitted to the Parliament. They also spoke of communication at the Parliament via stimulating participation and promoting contact with the voters, as well as the media’s response to parliamentary transparency.

Barbara Georgopoulou, chief-of-staff of the cabinet of the Hellenic Parliament Secretary General, Alexandra Konida, Head of the Hellenic Parliament’s Directorate for IT and New Technologies, Ilias Koromilas, Head of the Better Regulation Office, Greek Government Secretariat General and Panos Kouanis, leader of component Transparency and Civil Society of the Hellenic Parliament  also spoke at the conference.