Boosting bilateral relations and the integration of the western Balkans within the European Union were the focus of an official visit to Slovenia by the Italian parliament's foreign affairs committee chairwoman Marta Grande and MP Filippo Giuseppe Perconti on Monday.
During talks with the chairman of the Slovenian National Assembly's foreign affairs committee, Matjaz Nemec, Grande underlined the need for European support to bring to justice the killers of PhD student Giulio Regeni, whose unsolved 2016 abduction in Cairo and subsequent torturing to death caused a diplomatic rift between Italy and Egypt.
During his meeting with Grande and Perconti, Nemec expressed "solidarity and convinced support for an initiative aimed at involving all the foreign committees of the Parliaments of EU member states," according to the Italian parliament's statement.
Grande and Perconti later on Monday met Slovenia's secretary of state for foreign affairs, Dobran Bozic, with whom they took an in-depth look at bilateral relations starting with issues around the protection of Italian and Slovenian minorities, according to the statement.
The two lawmakers also met members of the Italian community in the port city of Kopar - an encounter coordinated by MP Felice Ziza, who represents Italians in Slovenia's parliament.
Italy and Slovenia this month began anti-migrant patrols along the 120 mile border between the two countries aimed at stemming the flow of people entering the EU via Bosnia and Croatia.
