On 14-15 of February, a delegation from WBF Secretariat, payed a working visit to the Central European Initiative (CEI) Secretariat Headquarters, in Trieste.
WBF delegation, composed by WBF ED Mr. Gjergj Murra, WBF Senior Official from BiH MFA, Mr. Milos Prica and WBF Programme Manager Ms. Dafina Beqiri, held discussions with CEI Secretary General, Mr. Roberto Antonione, alternate SG, Mr. Antal Nikoletti, Deputy SG, Mrs. Nina Kodelja and a team of experts covering different areas of competency within organization.
The meeting was a useful opportunity for WBF representatives to learn more about CEI programmes and to discussed potential areas of cooperation, as per CEI action plan (2018-2020) and WBF programme.
CEI is one of the first regional organizations that contributes to European Integration and sustainable development through cooperation and acts as a platform for political dialogue, through its strong operational result-oriented approach to regional cooperation.
During the meeting, it was highly emphasized that WBF and CEI share a lot of similarities, especially in the development and implementation of projects and also, both organizations aim to foster dialogue and people to people contacts. WBF presented its achievements during the first and second Call for Project Proposals, CEI representatives were impressed to learn about the willingness for cooperation among WBF stakeholders, as it was stated during the meeting this is another sign that by enhancing cooperation among these two institutions will further foster dialogue between communities in Western Balkans and also in Central Europe.
Follow up actions of this visit are: definition of concrete actions to be proposed by WBF Secretariat to CEI in terms of cooperation, promotion of dialogue and support to common projects, close cooperation for sharing best practices and respective know-how, etc.
In this respect, a working visit of a CEI delegation to the WBF premises, in Tirana, in the forthcoming period, was agreed upon.
