27. 11. 2020 | POTC, PR, Security
This year marks the 20th anniversary of adopting the historic UN Security Council Resolution on Women, Peace and Security (1325), and the 25th anniversary of adopting the Beijing Declaration on Gender Equality. These two documents, together with other UN Security Council resolutions, form the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda.
Commemorating both achievements, the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Slovenia together with the Slovenian Peacekeeping Operations Training Centre (POTC) organized a virtual international conference “Women, Peace and Security” in the format of the Central European Defence Cooperation (CEDC) Initiative with the additional participation of representatives from the Western Balkan countries and Luxembourg on 26 November 2020.
The introductory speech was given by the State Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, Mr. Uroš Lampret, and Ms. Katja Geršak, CEP/POTC Executive Director. Ms. Christine Löw, director of the UN Women Liaison Office Geneva, as the keynote speaker reflected on the milestones and setbacks in the past years. She emphasized the importance of women’s equal and meaningful participation in peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding. The UN needs to aim towards making women’s full, equal, and meaningful participation a requirement in all mediation teams, political transitions, and the peace processes it leads or co-leads.
According to the reports of the countries, significant progress has been made in on gender mainstreaming in the area of peace and security, which is the result of raising public awareness of women’s equal participation, gender mainstreaming in various policies, increasing women’s involvement in international operations and missions, and preventing sexual violence against women and girls. The constant growth of the percentage of females serving in the national defense forces and their increased participation in international missions and operations has been highlighted throughout the conference. Today women perform a wide range of duties in the armed forces from leadership and command duties through staff duties to various specialist duties. It is important to raise public awareness, that military does not belong exclusively to men and that performance of female soldiers is as professional as one of their male colleagues. Throughout these years countries integrated the WPS Agenda into various lectures within their military education and training systems. Nowadays, we can expect women’s rights to be a part of military school curriculums, pre-deployment courses, and other specialized courses. In connection with the increased educational activities in that field, the need for translation of relevant gender perspective materials into countries’ native languages, has also increased in the past years.
The conference was a great opportunity to analyze, revise, and reflect on the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda and the activities accomplished in that field over the past years. A collection of introductory speeches, contributions of participants, and conclusions of the conference will be published in a form of a compendium in the next weeks.

25. 11. 2020 | POTC, PR, Security
Peace Operations Training Centre has proudly implemented its first training, jointly supported by the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Interior, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia. Several other experts have joined training that gathered twenty participants of different backgrounds. Due to the global situation, it was implemented fully online.
The training was organized as an opportunity to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the 1325 United Nations Security Council resolution on women, peace and security and the Beijing Declaration that was adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. Participants have discussed the content and importance of the international documents that frame the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda. Additional emphasis was put on understanding the difference between sex and gender and the importance of including women as representatives of half of humanity in all aspects of life. It was pointed out that when women are involved in decision-making, in research, in knowledge production, women do not get forgotten. Female lives and perspectives are brought out of the shadows. This is to benefit of women everywhere, and often, to the benefit of humanity as a whole.
With research, it was proven that the inclusion of women in peace deals and daily mission’ life brings only positive results. The process of women at the negotiating table not only makes it more likely that an agreement will be reached, it also makes it more likely that peace will last. Women frequently bring in issues to the peace-building agenda that male elites tend to overlook: inclusivity and accessibility of processes and institutions and the importance of local and informal spheres. Participants discussed how gender mainstreaming is settled in the EU CSDP missions and in different other international operations.
At the end several experts were invited to share their experiences from the international missions and operations of the EU, NATO, OSCE, and UN from Afghanistan, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Lebanon, Palestine, South Sudan, and Ukraine. Participants have discussed how they can use their good practices of gender mainstreaming in their daily work (current and potentially in the mission abroad).

19. 11. 2020 | BIH - Supporting the way to the EU, PR
Fourth workshop of “Supporting BiH on its way to the EU” successfully concluded
To read the post in Slovene click here.
In the framework of the project “Supporting BiH on its way to the EU”, Centre for the European Perspective (CEP), in cooperation with the Directorate for European Integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina (DEI), carried out the fourth workshop on selected chapters of the acquis for civil servants, working at competent authorities, with Slovenian experts sharing their experiences and good practices in the field of conflict of interest, especially in its regulation, detection and prevention.
The workshop took place between 16 and 17 November 2020.
The two-day online workshop, moderated by Ms Katja Geršak, Executive Director of Centre for European Perspective (CEP), began with the introductory remarks by H.E. Ms Zorica Bukinac, Ambassador of the Republic of Slovenia in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ms Maja Rimac Bjelobrk, Assistant Director in Division for Communication and Training in the Field of European Integration at the Directorate for European Integration, Bosnia and Herzegovina, who remarked upon the importance of the theme of the workshop and emphasized the need for the reform of the legislation for the regulation of conflict of interest.
The importance of this topic was also mentioned in the European Commission working document ‘Bosnia and Herzegovina Report 2020’ accompanying the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions from 6 October 2020. The document states that Bosnia and Herzegovina is at an early stage with public administration reform and judiciary reform, but has made no progress in adopting a comprehensive law on prevention of conflict of interest, in line with international standards. You can read the report here.
Monday sessions focused on the ‘Regulation of conflicts of interest’ by Mr Roman Prah, AC and Integrity consultant and on ‘Detection and prevention of conflict of interests’ by Mr Gregor Pirjevec, Anti-Corruption expert.
Sessions of the second day focused on best practices and Bosnian system of conflict of interest prevention and practical recommendations by Dr Jure Škrbec, Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and case studies presented by Mr Prah, Mr Pirjevec and Dr Škrbec.
Dr Škrbec presented the best practices and legislative solutions from the region and beyond and compared them with BiH practice and their legislation. Through the prepared case studies of different circumstances of conflict of interest, the workshop participants were then led to find the best solution to the cases.
The aim of the project is to provide training for civil servants, working at competent authorities at all levels of the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and therefore contribute to advanced knowledge of civil servants working in the field of European integration. The inclusion of BiH into the European integration processes is one of the priorities set out in the basic guidelines of BiH’s foreign policy. The four trainings provided were focused on topics highlighted by the Directorate for European Integration of BiH as priority areas in the period 2019 and 2020.
For more about the workshop → Workshop 16.-17.11. ‘Supporting BiH on its way to the EU’
The project is part of the CEP program activities, which are supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia in the scope of Slovenia’s Development Cooperation.
16. 11. 2020 | Macedonia - corruption, Macedonia - Finance, Macedonia - Resources, North Macedonia - RoL, PR
Slovenia’s development assistance to North Macedonia in joining the EU continues
More about the project in Slovenian language.
Slovenia continues to provide development assistance to North Macedonia, aimed at strengthening the capacity of law enforcement institutions, in achieving the European standards expected for accession to the European Union within the negotiation chapter 24: Justice, Freedom and Security.
This chapter, in addition to the chapter on justice and fundamental rights, is a starting point for further progress towards full EU membership. The European Union has placed chapters on justice and fundamental rights, as well as justice, freedom and security, at the heart of the negotiation process, as these are the issues and areas that are most important to citizens. The process of harmonization and application of regulations in these two chapters is monitored throughout the negotiation process and negotiations in the other chapters can be stopped if the country has not made satisfactory progress in these two chapters.
A workshop will be held in North Macedonia from 23 to 26 November 2020, the purpose of which is to strengthen the capacity of North Macedonia in the field of financial investigations and the successful seizure of assets of crime and property of illegal origin.
The project is part of programme activities of Slovenia’s Development Cooperation Programme financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia and carried out together with the State Prosecution, Financial Administration, Ministry of Interior and Police of the Republic of Slovenia.
Further information:
Andreja Dolničar Jeraj
Programme Director
CEP
14. 11. 2020 | Bled Strategic Forum, PR
COVID-19 remains top priority for governments worldwide. What does this mean for climate change?
With one year to go before major UN climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow, the British Embassy, Centre for European Perspective and Bled Strategic Forum jointly hosted an online event with leading British and Slovenian experts.
The discussion (titled “COP vs COVID”) considered how the response to COVID-19 might affect climate negotiations, and ambitions, ahead of next year’s conference in the UK.
In a lively discussion, it was clear that action on climate change remains urgent. As climate scientist Professor Sir Brian Hoskins (Imperial College London) emphasized: “Every bit of carbon dioxide that we add today will influence the climate for the next 1000 years.”
COP26 will be the most important international meeting on climate change since Paris in 2015, and our future climate will be largely determined by the global response in the next decade. Professor Dr Lučka Kajfež Bogataj (University of Ljubljana) projected that “our current policies give us a 3% probability of success. What our future will look like depends on the next ten years. Plans for 2050 are useless if we don’t deliver on goals for 2030.”
So the COP26 negotiations under the UK Presidency (in partnership with Italy) needs to be ambitious and inclusive, said Lead COP26 Negotiator for the UK, Archie Young. “Ambition means accelerating real world climate action” – not just setting bolder targets for the distant future.
COVID-19 has undeniably made the response to climate change much more complicated. “We all think that due to COVID-19 we already changed our lifestyles and lowered emissions,” said Prof Kajfež Bogataj. In Slovenia emissions reduced by up to 18% during the first lockdown. “Unfortunately, as soon as the restrictions were loosened in June, emissions went back up.”
However, as Ms Tina Kobilšek from MOP points out: “COVID-19 is not only a challenge, but also an opportunity for change.” While governments are rightly focussed on tackling the virus, climate remains crucial – “We are not only facing a pandemic but also the climate crisis, and that won’t go away.” During Slovenia’s EU Presidency next year, “Slovenia is fully committed to steer the EU towards an ambitious climate target and outcome of COP26.”
Mr Young was clear that the UK sees Slovenia as an important partner. He added: “When COVID meant I had to call countries to postpone COP26, the vast majority agreed that postponing the conference could not mean postponing climate action.” Slovenia’s EU presidency would be vital to sustain momentum in the final months of negotiations.
There was broad agreement that a ‘green recovery’ from COVID-19 was vital. “Stimulus packages can genuinely transform the economy,” said Mr Young, “I understand the temptation to take short term, easy way out option. But now is time to take a step back and think what our economies need to look like in the future, With the right decisions, we can get on the path of achieving the viral Paris climate change goals.”
You can watch the event here.
This was the launch event of the FUTURE PERFECT event series, which will convene experts to ask big questions about our post-COVID future, organized by the British Embassy in Ljubljana in co-operation with CEP, BSF and other partners. The events will offer opportunities for the audience to ask questions directly of leading experts in their fields.
