Greece as EU member should display European attitude towards Macedonia as a candidate country for accessing the Union, President Gjorge Ivanov said Thursday at a joint press conference of outgoing, incoming and future chair of the SEE Cooperation Process after the SEECP Summit of Heads of State and Government, which took place in Sveti Stefan, Montenegro.

"We always point out the former problem between Slovenia and Croatia and how they managed to settle it. We cite this experience and ask for each EU member to treat the candidate countries in a European manner. We ask the same from Greece," Ivanov said.

The President said that Macedonia, which is taking over the SEECP chairmanship next year, would focus on priority topics, such as natural disasters and how to deal with them.

SEECP, he said, has been uniting the countries to work together on establishing good neighbourly relations and creating the common future.

Serbia, which today has officially become the SEECP Chairmanship-in-Office, will do its best to bolster the cooperation of the South East European countries, President Boris Tadic said.

It is very important for all SEE countries to advance towards the EU membership, which will contribute to the region's stability, Tadic said.

As an outgoing SEECP Chair, Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic said the presiding mandate of his country was focused on the region's stability, economic promotion, EU, NATO membership and fight against corruption.

The South-East European Co-operation Process (SEECP) is a regional organisation founded in June of 1996 in Sofia with the objective of strengthening relations between countries in the Balkans, favouring peace, security, stability and speeding up Euro-Atlantic integration for the entire region.

Twelve countries are part of the SEECP: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey.