RCC presents SEE 2020 Strategy

BUCHAREST - The Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) has prepared a South East Europe 2020 strategy (SEE 2020) to help governments improve economies and create new jobs, participants of the First meeting of the Governing Board of the RCC SEE 2020 Strategy in Bucharest have said.

This strategy was drawn up to deal with weak economic growth and unemployment, the biggest problem in the region, the RCC said on Thursday.

RCC Secretary General Goran Svilanovic said a real balance between ambition and reality was vital to managing the problem successfully.

Deputy Head of Unit for Regional Cooperation and Programmes in the European Commission’s Directorate General for Enlargement Kjartan Bjornsson described the SEE 2020 strategy as the right approach at the right place and the right time.

Presenting the SEE 2020 Baseline Report, mechanism that will be used for tracking progress in the strategy’s implementation, SEE 2020 Coordinator Sanjin Arifagic said that the mechanism would enable all stakeholders, governments and citizens of the region have a full and clear insight into the way the strategy impacted the whole region.

SEE 2020 is a joint strategy for economic development in seven SEE countries, including Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia.

The initiative to draw up the strategy was launched by the SEE governments and supported by the RCC earlier in 2014.

Through implementation of a total of 86 strategic measures, the SEE countries plan to remove trade barriers, jointly promote the region to foreign investors, finance joint research programs, develop a common energy and transportation infrastructure, enhance mobility of workers in the entire Balkans and...