Bled Strategic Forum is the leading international conference in Central and South-Eastern Europe, which has, for the last sixteen years, been an inclusive platform bringing together a diverse structure of people from diplomacy, politics, business, private and public sector, and academia, in order to discuss Europe’s key challenges of the 21st century.

Central theme of 2021 edition of Bled Strategic Forum was the future of Europe and a call for increasing its resilience. Europe and with it the EU have been faced, over a relatively short period of time, with a number of difficult situations, ranging from financial and migration crises, Brexit and COVID-19 pandemic that have challenged the organization’s values and standards, but also decreased the level of trust in international law and organizations. It would therefore be fair to say that those experiences affect the social, economic and political structure of the world, Europe, the EU, its member states and every single individual. Tackling demographic challenges, investing in youth, R&D, digital and green projects, infrastructure, energy, digital connectivity and artificial intelligence is therefore an essential part of EU’s post-crisis recovery alongside with putting more emphasis on increasing its political power on the global stage and building strong partnerships with its allies.

Bled Strategic Forum 2021 was also one of the main events taking place during the second Slovenian Presidency of the EU Council, under the slogan “Together. Resilient. Europe.” Future of Europe, sustainability, digitalisation and Transatlantic relations are common key topics on which Slovenia and with it Bled Strategic Forum build and encourage dialogue.

The 16th edition of the Bled Strategic Forum under the title Future of Europe took place between 1 and 2 September 2021 in Bled, Slovenia.

Learn more about the Bled Strategic Forum HERE.