Minister for Foreign Affairs and European Integration Milan Rocen hosted today Luxembourg's Minister of Development, Cooperation, and Humanitarian Affairs Marie-Josée Jacobs.

Minister Rocen thanked Luxembourg's government for their support to Montenegro, particularly in the area of development aid through government agency Lux Development and the humanitarian organization Caritas Luxembourg at the north of the country. He noted that this corresponds with our internal and foreign policy priorities. In that context he underlined that the opening of accession negotiations will yield new opportunities for greater cooperation with Luxembourg.

A constitutive meeting of the Presidency of the National Convention on European Integration took place today at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration. Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Milan Rocen chaired the meeting which attended representatives of the Government, the Parliament, Local Authorities, and civil society. Ambassador of Slovakia to Montenegro František Lipka, Chief Negotiator for accession negotiations of Montenegro to the European Union Aleksandar Andrija Pejovic, and Secretary General of the European Movement in Montenegro Momcilo Radulovic who will be working on the implementation of this project together with the Slovak Foreign Policy Association also attended the meeting.

A large welcome note to Montenegro was displayed this morning on the facade of the WTO headquarters in Geneva as Montenegro is set to join this organisation as its 154th member on 29 April 2012. This will be exactly one month since Montenegro submitted ratification documents, following their approval by the Parliament. Prime Minister Igor Luksic and WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy signed the Protocol on Accession to the WTO on 18 December 2011 in Geneva.

 The meeting will take place in Villa 'Gorica' at 7:15 pm.

Accreditations for recording the event may be made with the Bureau for Public Relations at 482 848.

The South East Europe Territorial Cooperation Programme published a vacancy announcement for the position of the Head of the Joint Programme Secretariat. More information may be found at URL: http://www.southeast-europe.net/hu/.

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Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Milan Rocen will depart today to Brussels where he will attend the Ministerial meeting of the North Atlantic Council with ISAF contributor countries, at the invitation of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.