Vrnjačka Banja. IRE-Chairman Franz Schausberger is in of Vrnjačka Banja in Serbia for a meeting of the Joint Consultative Committee between EU and Serbia in the European Committee of the Regions.

„When a country joins the EU, around 70 percent of the EU requirements and EU policies have to be implemented at local authority level. For this, local politicians and administrations must be trained accordingly," explained Franz Schausberger during the session and underlined: "Strengthening cities and communities is not only important in the course of the EU accession process, but also strengthens countries as a whole."

Mr. Schausberger met with Miroslav Gačević, Assistant Minister for EU-Integration of Serbia, and Ms. Sanja Putnik, Assistant Minister for Public Administration and Local Self Government.

Thank you to Ms. Dragana Sotirovski, the Mayor of Niš and Co-Chair of the JCC EU-Serbia, for the fruitful cooperation, the mutual understanding and the efforts ro bring EU and Serbie closer together.

​Information: The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) works closely with the EU candidate countries in the Western Balkans. The CoR's statutory role in EU enlargement policy is based on Stabilization and Association Agreements between partner countries and the EU. Half of the JCC's members are local or regional representatives from Serbia, the other half are CoR members. There are two co-chairs, Prof. Franz Schausberger (AT/EPP), and the mayor of Niš, Ms Dragana Sotirovski.