Twenty years after it was launched in 1996, the SoutheastEuropean Cooperation Process (SEECP) held its consecutive annual meeting in Sofia. Having been launched on the initiative of Bulgaria with the signing of the Declaration of Good-neighbourly Relations, Stability, Security and Cooperation between Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, (at the time – Serbia and Montenegro) and Turkey, the SEECP has constantly been evolving these past 20 years. Now, entering its third decade, the initiative has five more members – Croatia, Moldova, Montenegro, Slovenia and Kosovo, whereas other regional organizations have ceased to exist – such as the South-East Europe Cooperative Initiative (SECI) in 2006 and the Stability Pact in 2008. The fact itself that this year’s meeting in Sofia considered setting up a permanent seat for the Permanent Secretariat of the SEECP Parliamentary Assembly speaks for itself.

The viability of the initiative can be explained most of all by adequacy of its actions regarding the problems in the region. Addressing the migrant pressure, for example,  was a top priority over the past year of Bulgaria’s chairmanship-in-office. In this regard, on a proposal by Sofia, in February the member countries signed a joint declaration on the need to act in a spirit of responsibility and solidarity to ensure concerted action, effective coordination and evenhanded management of migration flows in the region. Energy and infrastructure connectivity was another top priority that faced the Bulgarian chairmanship. Thus, the project for a gas interconnection Bulgaria-Greece entered a crucial stage in recent months. It was a couple of days ago that an agreement was signed on a Bulgaria-Romania gas interconnector. The support Bulgaria has been getting as a member of the EU is conducive to resolving the problems of the Southeast European Cooperation Process itself, and that has made the country’s chairmanship-in-office all the more successful. A case in point is the fact that the European Border and Coast Guard committed itself to rendering assistance in checking the migration flow along Bulgaria’s border with Turkey, something that will benefit the other countries of southeast Europe as well.

The Bulgarian chairmanship-in-office of the SEECP coincided, in part, with the country’s Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe from November 2015 to May 2016. Bulgaria’s commitment to two rotating presidencies has, beyond any doubt meant gaining experience for the upcoming presidency of the Council of the EU in 2018.