We’re always happy to welcome guests at our beautiful castle, and today we were able to host not only one but two delegations working towards the same goal – preparing their countries to join the European Union in the shortest and fastest manner.
Mr Zurab Khamashuridze, Director, Department of European Integration, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was heading the delegation of the Parliament of Georgia, which is a national coordinating body for all activities related to the process of EU integration. The discussion evolved around CEP experiences with candidate countries and 12 priorities set by the European Commission to be addressed by Georgian authorities before being granted candidate status. Building on good past cooperation on the digital diplomacy program, it was agreed that we can upgrade our relationships and provide concrete support in priorities linked to the rule of law, anti-corruption measures, and involvement of civil society in decision-making processes, to name a few.
State Secretary from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of North Macedonia, Mr Filip Toseski, attended bilateral consultations with his Slovenian counterparts and paid a visit to CEP. As this was his first visit to Slovenia, we presented the four pillars that CEP is working on, and we were happy to learn that he has already heard about interesting and useful CEP training courses. Topics of concrete Slovenian support to North Macedonia were discussed, not forgetting to praise the already established good cooperation between the Specialized State Prosecution Office, the Financial Police and the Customs Administration from both countries in the framework of bilateral cooperation on financial investigations supported by Slovenian Aid.
It was agreed that Slovenia has valuable expertise that can be utilised by North Macedonian colleagues to accelerate their way towards full membership of the European Union.
