Ragus meets with Spanish ambassador

BELGRADE - Serbian Deputy Parliament Speaker Marina Ragus, who also heads the Committee on Foreign Affairs, met with the Spanish Ambassador to Belgrade Juan Jose Sanz Aparicio on Tuesday.

The parties agreed that advancement of parliamentary relations and cooperation at all levels was in the interest of both states.

Ragus said Belgrade considered Spain a friendly country that persevered in respecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia, especially in the present political circumstances, which she noted was a fact Serbia highly respected.

She said advancement of parliamentary cooperation was extremely important given the friendly relations between the two states.

She informed the ambassador that a Serbia-Spain friendship group had been established in the Serbian parliament and expressed full readiness of the Committee on Foreign Affairs to cooperate with its Spanish equivalent as the current Serbian parliament focused on parliamentary diplomacy.

She added that she expected future activities to bring a new format of cooperation between the two parliaments, the National Assembly of Serbia said in a statement.

The ambassador said this was the ideal time to step up inter-parliamentary cooperation as Spain supported Serbia's aspirations to full EU membership and had no doubts about Serbia's position on defence of its territorial integrity and sovereignty.