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Romania's Foreign Affairs Ministry, holder of the Chairmanship-in-office of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization - BSEC, welcomes the accession of the Republic of North Macedonia to this organization following the ratification, on October 27, by the North Macedonian Parliament, of the BSEC Charter and additional amendments thereto.
The Republic of North Macedonia's joining the BSEC as its 13th member state "is a reconfirmation of the relevance and role of the organization, which, during its 28 years of existence, has affirmed its status as a representative cooperation structure in the Black Sea region," the Foreign Ministry said in a release.
The Romanian Foreign Ministry considers that "the accession of the Republic of North Macedonia to the BSEC represents both an important step in the sense of boosting intergovernmental economic cooperation and strengthening BSEC's regional profile, the priorities for action of the agenda consistently promoted by the Romanian Chairmanship-in-office of the organization, which are capable of conferring substance to the development of good neighborly relations between the states of the wider Black Sea region and contribute to promoting stability and prosperity by cultivating an authentic dialogue between the BSEC member states."
The Black Sea Cooperation Process was launched by the signing of the Istanbul Summit Declaration of June 25, 1992, aimed at speeding up the economic and social development of the participating states by intensifying multilateral cooperation and using the benefits of geographical proximity and complementarity of national economies. On June 5, 1998, the participating states signed the BSEC Charter - the founding document of the organization, which came into force on May 1, 1999, marking the transformation of the political initiative into an international regional organization.
In 2019, the Republic of North Macedonia expressed its interest in becoming the 13th BSEC member state (joining Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, the Republic of Moldova, Romania, the Russian Federation, Turkey, Ukraine and Serbia). The decision on the accession of the Republic of North Macedonia to the BSEC was adopted unanimously by the 40th Meeting of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the BSEC member states held in Sofia on 28 June 2019. Subsequently, the Republic of North Macedonia started - according to the BSEC procedure - the ratification process by Parliament of the Charter and of the additional amendments thereto, a process completed on October 27, 2020. The official notification on the completion of the procedures for joining the organization was received on Monday, November 9.
