At the working meeting of the chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH, dr. Nikola Špirić and Prime Minister of Greece, dr. Kostas Karamanlis, which has been held in June last year in Greece, it has been agreed on strengthening the cooperation between these two countries and especially the exchange and transfer of experiences of Greece in the process of integration of functioning as a member of the EU. In realization of this agreement, from 11th to 13th of March, this year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece was a host of visit of 10 civil servants from BiH.
The visit was organized as a contribution of the Greek Government to the European perspective to the countries of West Balkans through the seminar on topic: «Public administration, protection of living environment and culture: Experiences of Greece in the EU» which has been prepared and realized by the National Center for Public Administration and Local Administration of Greece.
During this visit, the group from BiH has been welcomed by the General Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece for the European affairs, Mr. Dimitris K. Katsoudas with the presence of the ambassadors of BiH in Greece, His Excellency, Mr. Milovan Blagojević. In his speech, Mr. Katsoudas has emphasized many positive economic and political advantages of the process of integrating, which has been achieved by Greece and unambiguous support for the European perspective of BiH. 
He has particularly pointed out on complexity of the process of adopting the decisions inside the institutions of the EU and a need for BiH to become a member, establish the functional mechanisms of decision-making on central level, which will not endanger already complex procedures of decision-making inside the institutions of the EU. The Deputy Coordinator for the Public Administration Reform, Mr. Suad Musić has in the name of whole group thanked for welcoming, by reminding on the significance of Greek presiding by the EU and conclusions of the European Council (Thessaloniki Summit 2003 ), by which there have been definitely confirmed the European perspective of West Balkans as well as the other kinds of assistance of Greece to BiH, by including the renovation of the Greek-BiH Friendship building, twinning to the Ministry of Justice of BiH, many infrastructural projects of assistance, and has also pointed out on the progress which BiH makes on the European path, by including the recent activities of entities towards unifying the institution of Ombudsman for human rights of BiH as well.
During the visit, the group from BiH has also been welcomed by the Director of the Directorate for countries of South-East Europe Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece, Mr. Xristos Panagopoulos, who has talked in detail about the support of Greece to all the countries of Balkans and BiH in the process of the EU integration and has been interested in possible modalities of development of cooperation between Greece and BiH, by stating the openness for future initiatives. In the process of sharing the experiences of Greece in the EU, the group from BiH was also hosted by the representatives of the Parliamentary Directorates for administrative, legal, financial affairs of the Directorates for European affairs and the Parliamentary Library, which have presented the most significant aspects of organization and their work.
In the frame of reception in the Embassy of BiH in Greece, His Excellency Ambassador Milovan Blagojević has pointed out on the most significant activities in development of relations of BiH and Greece, by emphasizing the need of improving the economic exchange which currently is not satisfying, and whose one of the pre-conditions is also the establishment of better communicational connectivity of Sarajevo and Athena, especially the air-traffic.
During the seminar held in the National center for public administration and local administration of Greece, there were presented experiences of Greece in:
1. The area of structure, organization and functioning of the National center for public administration and local administration of Greece as the only competent authority for training of civil and public servants. The Center itself serves for providing the services of training and life-learning services certified by ISO 9001:2000. As a curiosity of the Center there has particularly been emphasized its three-layer organizational structure. The National school for public administration and the National school for local administration, which by using the programs and funds of the EU and in last years with more participation of the Greek Government, has been leading the post-graduate studies (18 months) for a long time, which annually attend around 150 students for public administration and around 80 students for a local administration. The integral part of the post-graduate study also makes the four-month practical work in the authorities of administration after which they continue their study by reporting on the implemented internship and its evaluation. The third component makes the National institute for training along with the network of 12 regional institutes which is responsible for initial or introductory training for civil and public servants and constant trainings in the area of coordination, economy, environment, new technologies, foreign languages and other areas. In work of the Center, particularly recognizable is the scientific-research approach not only through the implementation of trainings, but also in the whole educational cycle, from the estimation of needs for trainings, designing the program for training, their implementation and reorganization of public sector.
2. Experiences of Greece in creating and implementing the EU regulations in the area of protection of living environment with a special focus on:
– Water management
– Quality of air and climate changes
– Biotechnology and bio-diversity
– Estimation of effect in legislation on protection of living environment and Strategic estimation of the effect in this area.
3. Experiences of Greece in the context of the European agenda for culture in global surrounding with the focus on an overview of measures which have been adopted in this segment by the institutions of the EU (Working plan for culture of the European Council 2008-2010; Referential national strategies 2007-2013 and similar) and general experience of Greece in this context. The same as the previous topics, this one also has an emphasis on needs of development of administrative capacities of the departmental institutions and development of skills of civil servants with the goal of using the structural and other funds of the EU, which are available for these intentions.
The group from BiH has consisted of the representatives of the Secretariat of the Presidency of BiH, the Council of Ministers of BiH (the Public administration reform coordinator's office, the Ministry of foreign market and economic relations, the Directorate for civil air traffic), the Government of the FBiH (the General secretariat of the Government, the Federal ministry of culture and sport, the Federal ministry of environment and tourism) and the Government of the RS (the Ministry of governance and local self-governance, the Ministry for spatial arrangement, building and ecology).