On behalf of Croatia, President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic will assume the Chairmanship-in-Office from Bulgaria for the year ahead. Croatia chaired the Process in the period 2006-2007.
Grabar-Kitarovic will take over the chairmanship of the SEECP at the annual Summit of SEECP Member States, to be held in Sofia, on Wednesday.
Apart from participating in the Summit, President Grabar-Kitarovic will hold a bilateral meeting with her Bulgarian counterpart Rosen Plevneliev.
On Tuesday, Croatia's Foreign Minister Miro Kovac will attend a ministerial meeting of this process, to be held in Pravets, about 60 km from the capital of Sofia.
A specific feature of SEECP is that it is an original form of co-operation among the countries in the region launched on their own initiative, and not on the initiative of some other international organisation or countries.
The objectives of the co-operation within SEECP include the strengthening of security and the political situation, intensification of economic relations and co-operation in the areas of human resources, democracy and justice. It is the intention of the SEECP to enable its members to approach the European and Euro-Atlantic structures through the strengthening of good neighbourly relations and transformation of the region into an area of peace and stability.
The founding members are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia (joined as Serbia and Montenegro) and Turkey. They signed a declaration on good neighbourly relations and stability and security in Sofia in 1996.
Croatia joined the initiative as a full member in 2004. The SEECP was subsequently joined also by Moldova, Montenegro, Slovenia and Kosovo.