Firstly, I would like to thank all the participants on behalf of the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development and on my personal behalf for their active involvement at the 2nd International Conference on Regional Development.
I am very glad to inform you that we have had over 200 participants from 15 countries, and that we jointly produced two important documents which were the result of presentations and discussions at plenary sessions and working groups at the Conference, namely:
1. Arandjelovac Agenda – which represents a blueprint of common concerns and expectations of the (potential) candidate and neighbourhood countries with regard to regional development, pre-accession as well as cohesion and neighbourhood funding to the EU, and
2. Action Plan on specific issues of common interest in the field of Regional Development – which lists the priority actions needed to be taken in each of four topics discussed at the working groups, and in the light of overcoming regional disparities
Secondly, we have agreed that hosts of the next, third Conference will be our colleagues from Montenegro, for whom we stay at disposal regarding the assistance they might need in the process of preparation.
Thirdly, we are determined to actively promote the abovementioned documents both at national and at the EU level. Namely, Arandjelovac Agenda was presented in June 2011 in Maastricht, as a part of training programme for EU accession issues, organized by European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA). Also, we plan to present it in October 2011 under the umbrella of “Open Days 2011 – European week of regions and cities” in Brussels to wider audience from relevant EU institutions.
Looking forward to continuing our successful cooperation and jointly overcoming regional disparities in our countries,
Sincerely,
Dragijana Radonjic Petrovic
State Secretary
Ministry of Economy
and Regional Development
