The Friends of UK group in the Serbian National Assembly reconvenes
The Friends of UK group of the Serbian National Assembly held its first meeting under the present parliament on 28 February.
New chairperson of the group, Dr Dijana Vukomanovic MP (SPS), kindly invited Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Belgrade, Michael Davenport, and other embassy representatives to attend the inaugural session.
The hosts expressed their commitment to work on further improvement of bilateral engagement between the two countries, particularly in the areas of EU reform, business, culture and science. Dr Vukomanovic praised the “excellent support” in parliamentary capacity-building process, provided to the Serbian National Assembly through the UK-funded Westminster Foundation for Democracy programme.
Ambassador Davenport spoke about the importance the UK attaches to stability and peace in the Western Balkans, and our continuous support to EU enlargement for all countries of this region, when the right criteria are met. The Ambassador also reflected on the key aspects of 176 years of official diplomatic relations between Serbia and the UK. He expressed the hope that this group will strongly promote bilateral political initiatives and announced the forthcoming visit of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) delegation from Westminster to Belgrade in mid-March.
With membership of 48 MPs from all political parties the Friends of UK group is the third largest group of this kind in the Serbian National Assembly.
Alex Brooks (Second Secretary EU, Head of UKTI Belgrade), Dusan Mihajilovic (Head of Communications and Bilateral Affairs) and Nebojsa Djuric (Business Development Manager in the British Council Belgrade) accompanied the ambassador during the inaugural session of the Friends of UK group.