Yesterday evening, the Chairman of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, Predrag Markovic, and the Speaker of the Hungarian Parliament, Katalin Szili, opened the Second Youth Tolerance Camp in Szeged, Hungary.

This year’s Tolerance Camp for Serbian and Hungarian students has been set up as part of the project defined in the Declaration on the Implementation of a Joint Tolerance Programme, signed in February 2005. The Hungarian-Serbian Parliamentary Youth Camp will be held in the Hungarian city of Szeged, from 23 to 27 August, as one of the events of the Szeged Youth Days., Mr Markovic and Ms Szili told the camp’s attendees that they would learn about the reasons behind the Tolerance Programme from both countries’ MPs and historians, who are to speak of both peoples’ common historical heritage.

Before opening the Camp, Markovic and Szili met at the Szeged City Hall to discuss future co-operation through the Tolerance Programme, currently organised through Youth Camps, and agreed that it should be transferred to the local government level, now that the foundations have been laid. The two parliamentary leaders also discussed issues of autonomy in Europe, Hungary’s visa requirement for Serbian nationals, and constitutional changes about to take place in both countries.

This year’s Camp was again attended by Serbian and Hungarian secondary school students (50 from each country); the event aims to make attendees familiar with the Serbian and Hungarian ethnic communities in the respective host countries, and the interactions between the two countries and their traditions, cultures, and lifestyles. A visit to the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest is planned for the last day of the Camp.