17. 12. 2018 | Bled Strategic Forum, PR
Bled Strategic Forum Secretary General took part in First annual forecasting event “EU and Western Balkans in 2019”, held in Belgrade.
Event, organised by European Fund for the Balkans, Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG) and European Western Balkans, gathered more than 30 most influential opinion makers from the region and EU who gave their predictions about the trends and dynamics of policy developments in 2019. The aim of the discussions was to exchange views and to make conclusions that could influence the political decisions in the upcoming turbulent year.
What will post-election and post-Brexit EU look like? What could be predicted considering bilateral issues and regional cooperation in the Western Balkans? What trends the region could expect regarding the state of democracy, rule of law and media freedom? These are some of the topics discussed.
Main conclusion of the event was that European Union will not have the time for Western Balkans next year and, therefore, new energy for fight against stagnation and captured state has to be found. Read more about the discussion at
12. 12. 2018 | PR
Ms Katja Geršak has officially taken office as the new Executive Director of the Centre for European Perspective, succeeding Dr Gorazd Justinek. Ms Geršak started her mandate on 11 December 2018 with the aim to continue to strengthen the role of the Centre as a strong government foundation with diversified spectrum of activities, ranging from development cooperation programmes, research and think thank activities to peacekeeping and peace-building trainings.
Ms Katja Geršak has experience in private sector, she also worked as the Vice President of Business Angels of Slovenia and has co-founded Regional Dialogue, an NGO working in the area of justice sector reform in Uzbekistan of which she was the Deputy Director between 2010 and 2013.
The main aims of her mandate are further strengthening the role of CEP in the Balkans and Central and Eastern Europe through capacity building and other strategic projects, as well as ensure that CEP is a platform providing various perspectives on global issues, connect all spheres of society and contribute valuable analysis to foreign policy making of Slovenia.
Handover was marked by a policy discussion titled “Central and Eastern Europe at the Crossroads” and a reception at Jable Castle.
12. 12. 2018 | PR, THINK Initiative
Centre for European Perspective organized the annual policy discussion “Central and Eastern Europe at the Crossroads” and reception on Wednesday, 12 December 2018, attended by over 80 participants from public and private sector, NGOs and universities. Policy discussion also represented a concluding round table of the THINK Initiative project, where CEP is one of the partners in an international consortium.
The policy discussion addressed the current state of affairs in the Central and Eastern Europe with the panellists Mr Matej Marn, Political Director/Director General at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia, Ambassador Iztok Mirošič, Bled Strategic Forum Programme Director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Sloveniaand Ms Nina Pejič, Young Researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences, East Asia Resource Library Head of Research and THINK Initiative Researcher, moderated by Ms Katja Geršak, Executive Director of the Centre for European Perspective.
Ms Špela Lajmiš, President of the Executive Board of the Centre for European Perspective opened the event and thanked all the partners for cooperation and valuable presence in Centre’s activities. The Centre is not only carrying out its core activities but also venturing new adventures, she emphasized. Ms Lajmiš also announced a change in the leadership with Dr Gorazd Justinek leaving the Centre and Ms Katja Geršak taking the office as the Executive Director.
Ms Geršak, moderator of the round table, introduced the topic and the speakers. Mr Ingo Mayr-Knoch, CEO of the THINK Initiative, presented THINK Initiative, a platform for discussion of international affairs that aims to revolutionize how European strategies are developed. Platform aims to serve to exchange information, look at challenges and opportunities and develop more creative strategies of a common European response to the challenges. The current issue is that different sectors are not exchanging information nor thinking together; which is clearly visible when faced with Chinese initiatives – plenty of actors do not have a coherent strategy. The phase one of the project was focused on China, yet infrastructure, technology, digital technologies, Central Asia, defense cooperation present opportunities for the future research phases. Find more details about the project here.
Ms Geršak followed up with an overview of the state of the affairs in the CEE and asked the speakers to illustrate the current constellation of global powers in our region. Mr Marn pointed out clearly that the EU and NATO are the goals of the CEE region, but there is also a growing influence of other actors. He emphasized, there is a strong influence of Russia and China, whereas the two countries are also not united in their value system (various breaches of human rights, etc.), and continued with a claim that there is no clear strategy on what do we want to do with the presence of those actors – is there anything good they are bringing? He believes that the influence will get stronger closer that we get to the EU elections.
The discussion continued with a question “What should our policies be if we are to maintain EU peace and prosperity?”. Ambassador Mirošič explained that we are in the transition from multilateralism into a new world order, which is multipolar and multicentric in nature. Lack of security on the global level is reflected in the global strategy of EU, he believes. He pointed put that the lack of global strategy of EU is reflected in the lack of strategy in the CEE. The three major security powers that he sees are indeed China, Russia and the US. However, he neglected Ms Geršak’s challenge whether Russia and China will increasingly turn into strategic competitors. He believes that the main focus will stay on the US versus China.
Ms Pejič elaborated on the economic aspects of Chinese involvement in the region. She claimed that we are questioning Chinese influence because the CEE countries are letting China to influence their policies. She used the example of Rijeka Port, where Plenković openly said he wishes Chinese to take over the second track of railway to be built, even though there has been no open call for the bid yet. Ms Pejič explained that the main goal of Chinese infrastructure investments is to connect ports and transport infrastructure projects in order to connect the ports with the internal CEE and EU markets. They are indeed trying to be an alternative to Russia, in her opinion. She also pointed out that the CEE countries don’t have enough power against China, which is why her recommendation for them is to take a common stand in their response and approach to initiatives such as the 16+1 Platform.
Mr Marn elaborated on an important challenge in the EU – the lack of understanding of China (its language, culture, business ethics) and the fact that we are still underestimating China, which also leads to misperceptions. Ambassador Mirošič followed up with an economic issue that can follow from unsuccessful cooperation and is already visible in some of the other Belt and Road Initiative countries – if the infrastructure does not develop in a coherent way, the ports remain empty and the loans become very expensive.
Ms Pejič was very clear about the perceptions surrounding the Chinese investments – no policy comes with no strings attached and so doesn’t the investment. As an example, she pointed out the peacekeeping operations in Africa, where Chinese army is increasing its presence, predominantly as part of their development agenda, which contributes to the protection of their investments. She also compared European and Chinese approach – China is creating manufacturing investments in Africa, while Europe used African raw materials, China is building health clinics, while Europe send aid in money, she illustrated. She also emphasized that China approached the Western Balkans at the time when the European Commission announced there would be no enlargement in near future. She concluded that the European values only work if there is economic wellbeing attached to them. Mr Marn emphasized that China should not in any case be perceived as a security threat.
The policy discussion concluded with a Q&A session where ambassadors, public servants and business representatives got engaged in a discussion on wider CEE challenges and was followed by a reception at Jable Castle.
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12. 12. 2018 | ENTRi, IECEU, PR
Date: 12 – 15 February 2019
Place: Nairobi, Kenya
Overall Aim
The course will aim to consolidate the understanding of the role of a mentor and processes of mentoring in peace operations with the necessary shift of mind-set and attitude: from being a ‘doer’, alias professionals with authority and decision-making and executive functions in their area into being an observer, listener and resource person to assist local officials and stakeholders in enhancing their ability and facilitating the identification of problems and possible solutions. The main aim of the course is to equip subject matter experts with knowledge and mentoring skills and to give future mentors in peace operations the ability to successfully build a working relationship with their local counterpart and implement their project goals.
Methodology
The course foresees a high degree of group work, discussions and role plays. A mixture of participatory methods encourages the creation of new knowledge and skills through the interaction that takes place among participants with diverse experience, professional skills, and cultural backgrounds.
Learning Outcome
After completion of the ENTRi Course on Mentoring, participants should be able to: 1.) Understand mentoring as capacity building 2.) Know how to build trust with a mentee 3.) Apply principles and processes of building capacity through mentoring (phases of mentoring and importance of the concept of local ownership) 4.) Utilize communication skills (working with interpreters, basic negotiation skills) and intercultural competence 5.) Develop strategies on how to build a working relationship with a mentee and how to cope with resistance from the mentee 6.) Recognise the role mentoring plays in fulfilling the overall mission mandate and how to support the evaluation process of the mission.
Pre-Requisites
– The target group of the training are civilian experts, expected to serve and/or working in civilian crisis management operations with mentoring and advising tasks in their work descriptions. Predominately this concerns the areas of rule of law, justice reform, democratization, corrections, policing, and security sector reform, but not limited to those areas.
– Maximum 20 participants, preferably from international civilian crisis management/peace support missions (EU, UN, OSCE, AU etc). Experts from NGOs are also welcome to apply.
– The organizers also welcome applications from national mission staff.
9. 12. 2018 | Albania - Local Governments, PR, Slovenian Development Assistance
A training course “Training of the Trainers – From Listener to Successful Trainer” took place in Durres, Albania from 3 to 6 December 2018 as part of the CEP development project “Support to Albanian LGU on Preparation of the EU and Other International Projects”. Following a series of trainings, it served to transfer the skills and knowledge, gained from the trainings conducted in the previous years.
At the Training Opening, CEP Secretary General Mr Andrej Vrčon, BCCD Executive Director Ms Elvana Zhezha and Deputy Head of Mission at the Slovenian Embassy in Albania Ms Milena Radenković greeted the participants. Over 20 participants got acquainted with the AT-AP technique, characteristics of successful training, needs-based trainings, Kolb’s cycle of experiential learning and tell-tell-tell method on the first day of the training. They also looked into effective communication and skills of a good public speaker.
Second day was oriented to practice the skills acquired and allowed the participants to draft, create and propose their own project ideas that would be eligible for EU or other international funding and train their skills of presenting such projects in an effective way, while also learning how to train their colleagues and co-workers to do the same. On the third day trainers also involved participants into a session where they recorded their performances on a camera in order to learn how to deliver effective feedback to the videos. The fourth day of the training concluded with evaluation, future planning session and an address and concluding ceremony with Ambassador Stančič, Slovenian Ambassador to Albania.
The project “Support to Albanian LGU on Preparation of the EU and Other International Projects” focuses on the transfer of good practices from Slovenia in the field of strategic programming on the national level and implementation of the projects on the local level. It is based on a number of workshops, through which Slovenian experts offer training in project management to the representatives of Albanian municipalities, regional development agencies and representatives of various non-governmental organizations.
The execution of the project is done in cooperation with the BCCD – Balkan Center for Cooperation and Development.
The training is organised within the framework of the Centre for European Perspective project “Support to Albanian LGU on Preparation of the EU and Other International Projects” supported by the Slovenia’s Development Cooperation Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia.
Click here to read more about the project in Slovenian language. 
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