Croatian Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Marija Pejcinovic-Buric on Wednesday participated in a ministerial meeting of the Central European Initiative in Trieste and underscored the importance of regional cooperation and empowering youth, the foreign ministry has reported.

Addressing the meeting, Pejcinovic Buric said that regional cooperation is important as one of the preconditions in the process of European integration and is one of the CEI’s strategic objectives.

In addition to priority areas of cooperation within the framework of the CEI (EU enlargement, transfer of know-how, migration, economic, cultural and parliamentary cooperation, strengthening the CEI’s synergy with other regional and international organisations) the minister underscored the importance of empowering young people as well as further strengthening the “local dimension” of cooperation within the Initiative.

The theme of the plenary session being held as part of Italy’s presidency of the Initiative, was thirty years since establishing the CEI and looking to the future: a common vision, common values, European standards, strong regional cooperation.

Participants adopted a decision of CEI’s presidency in 2020, the amount of contributions by each member state to the CEI cooperation fund for 2020 and endorsed the annual report by CEI’s secretary-general for 2018 as well as adopted the Trieste Declaration, the ministry said in a press release.