Secretary General of the Parliament of Montenegro, Mr Aleksandar Jovićević, participated for the previous two days at the Forum of Secretaries General of Parliaments of Western Balkan Countries that was held in Warsaw. The meeting was organised by the National Democratic Institute (NDI), within the Initiative for strengthening legislation of the Western Balkan countries, in cooperation with the Parliament of Poland.
The key topics of the meeting were related to the capacity building of parliamentary legislative and research services, the work of specialised parliamentary groups established for dealing with particular issues and assistance to MPs, and the application of new technologies for more efficient management of parliamentary information and improvement of the transparency of parliament's work.
In the opening part of the meeting, Secretaries General of the parliaments of the countries of the region briefly presented political developments, as well as legislative initiatives and events that marked the work of their parliaments during the past year. The participants had the opportunity to get more acquainted with the structure and work of the Legislative Service of the Lower House of the Polish Parliament, including the preparation of expert opinions and provision of legal and technical support at the meetings of working bodies. In addition, the novelties, results, challenges and the best practices in the field of parliamentary research were presented, especialy the budget analysis. Secretaries General provided concrete examples and exchanged views on further directions for the development of this important segment of support to MPs in the exercise of their legislative and supervision role.
Representatives of services of regional parliaments also discussed various issues of the application of information technologies and developing an efficient and sustainable concept of electronic parliament, as well as the transparency of parliamentary work, which has been constantly improving in the parliaments of the countries in the region.
The meeting in Warsaw was an opportunity for the Secretaries General and representatives of services of parliaments of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and Poland to exchange views and experiences on various administrative and financial challenges that have been constantly arising in the work of parliamentary administrations.
Regional Forum of Secretaries General is part of the NDI Initiative for Strengthening the Legislation of the Western Balkan Countries, which aims to support parliaments in strengthening legislative, oversight and representative capacities. The Warsaw Forum was the eighth meeting of the Secretaries General under the auspices of this Initiative, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.
