"For our region, which is undergoing transition, it is very important that there is a huge will for reforms. The region has to be brought to the point where it is compatible with the other members of the European Union," Mesic told a presidential session on the second day of the Southeast European Regional Economic Forum.
"Our region has to be Europeanised, not because of Europe but because of ourselves. Because the European concept is a concept of peace," Mesic said, concluding that reforms must continue, on the economic, multiconfessional and multiethnic fronts.
The Milocer forum gathered business people and eminent figures from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia, as well as the heads of the region's states.
Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic, the official patron of the event, thanked Mesic, Slovene President Janez Drnovsek, Bosnian President Nebojsa Radmanovic, and Bulgarian Vice President Angel Marin for attending the forum and thus advancing relations among the region's countries and their prospects.
Vujanovic said the presidents of Albania and Macedonia could not attend due to previous commitments.
The president of the Regional Economic Forum, Bogic Bogicevic, said the road of Southeastern Europe's countries to the EU was tough but possible to complete.
Europe is the logical path and the key for the region's countries, but we cannot arrive there if we are divided, he said, adding that the strengthening of regional cooperation should be a common goal and that everyone should make an effort, rather than wait for imposed solutions or obligations.
Vujanovic said Montenegro's sovereignty was a condition to reach economic progress, as evidenced by the results achieved in the six months of the state's independence.
Radmanovic spoke of the privatisation process in Bosnia and Herzegovina, its prospects and will to cooperate in the region, while Marin spoke of Bulgaria's efforts in drawing closer to the EU.
Slovene President Drnovsek said all the republics of the former Yugoslavia would have been in the EU today had there been more will for dialogue, and recommended to the EU to be less egotistical.