10 October 2006

Co-chairs’ conclusions

1. The Financial Working Group (FWG) met for its constitutive session in Vienna on 10 October. Participants in the meeting constitute the members of FWG. The Group is co-chaired by the SEECP CIO, Ambassador Grigic, and the SP Secretariat Head of Cabinet, Gregor Koessler

2. The FWG will report to the SP Regional National Co-ordinators and will inform the Committee of the SEECP Political Directors via the SEECP Chairmanship in Office

3. The FWG agreed that one million Euro per annum was an acceptable approximation of the regional component of the funding of the RCC Secretariat. This figure and division among regional participants are to be endorsed at the RT in Bucharest on 16 November. The Group envisaged that the agreement on the regional funding component would be valid for an initial period of three years and should then be reviewed.

4. There was wide consensus among the Group that Model II, based on sub-grouping SEECP countries by economic size, and assigning shares to each subgroup, is the preferential model to be taken as a basis for developing concrete funding proposals. Other models, based on equal shares for all countries, or based on each country’s share of the collective regional GDP, were discarded by the Group. Model III, based on shares composed by a fixed amount to be determined, and an additional variable component based on economic size, remains open for further consideration

5. Co-chairs committed to distributing concrete funding proposals based on Model II before the next FWG meeting, but emphasised that participants are free to table further proposals along the lines of the above.

6. All delegations agreed to continue their work and exchange proposals until the FWG meets next on 27^th October in Vienna