CEFTA Secretariat

In accordance with Article 40.2 of CEFTA 2006, the Joint Committee is supported by a small permanent secretariat located in Brussels. The overall role of the Secretariat is to provide technical and administrative support to the Joint Committee, to any sub-committee, expert group or other body established by the Joint Committee.  This role has been defined by the Joint Committee under Decision No 7/2007, which sets out the Mandate of the Secretariat.
The Secretariat is currently financed jointly by the CEFTA Parties and a number of donors including the European Commission.

The CEFTA Secretariat was established in September 2008 and currently comprises three full time staff who were appointed following an international competitive tender for each position that was overseen by a specially appointed Selection Committee comprising representatives of each CEFTA Party and the European Commission as the main donor.

Ms Renata  Vitez, Director  has worked in both the public and private sector in Slovenia and the Western Balkans.  She has served as the State Secretary of the Slovene Ministry of Economy where she was heavily involved in Slovenia’s participation in CEFTA and in its accession to the EU.  More recently she has worked in Montenegro as a Resident Twinning Adviser with a focus on EU integration.

Ms Aleksandra Rakovic, Technical Adviser, previously worked in the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe as an expert in the Working Table II: Economic Co-operation and Development, dealing with Investment and Electronic SEE Initiative. Prior to the Stability Pact she worked in the General Secretariat of the Government of Serbia, EU Integration Office and the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations of Serbia and Montenegro where she was highly involved in the WTO related issues.

Ms Liudmila Nistor Mihajlova, Executive Assistant worked as the  Project Administrator on the Stability Pact’s Working Group on Trade Liberalisation and Facilitation from its establishment in 2000 until its closure in 2008.  During this time she was based at the Ministry of Economy in Macedonia and worked closely with the Stability Pact Secretariat in Brussels.

Financial administrative support is provided to the Secretariat by Mr Guy Van der Perren.

The Secretariat is located in the EFTA Building, 12-16 Rue Joseph II, B-1000, Brussels  (map)