16. 11. 2017 | Danube, PR
Danube University Krems and the Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe are hosting a conference “The EUSDR – Common Approach, Shared Competences” addressing the challenges for policies, economics, science, culture and education in the Danube Region.
European as well as international developments reveal numerous challenges for the EU Strategy for the Dabube Region (EUSDR) and the EU itself. Participants discussed the role of the institutions at local, regional, national and global levels implementing the EUSDR’s objectives, prerequisites for a stronger European idea in the Danube Region and throughout Europe, against growing right-wing populisms, extremisms and radicalization processes, and potentials for creations of new perspectives for the Danube Region.
CEP’s executive director Dr Gorazd Justinek spoke at the panel discussion “Necessary Concepts, Planning Horizons and Perspectives for a European Togetherness” together with Dr Mathias Czaika, Professor for Migration and Integration at the Danube University Krems, Mag Elisabeth Pacher, Consultant for European and International Culture Policy at the Federal Chancellery of Austria, Gyula Ribàr, Senior Expert Associate for EU Funds, Foundation Novi Sad 2021 – European Capital of Culture and Maria Schwarzmayr, Art Initiative „Divided Cities”. The panel was moderated by Mag Adelheid Wölfl, Correspondent South-Eastern Europe for Der Standard. Dr Justinek addressed the changing nature of the European integration project, touched upon the enlargement process and discussed the numerous crises the EU is facing today, but also the benefits the integration brings to the European population.
15. 11. 2017 | PR
In the framework of the Bled Strategic Forum international conference, Centre for European Perspective fosters a partnership with UCLA and its Center for Middle East Development, that recently organized the 12th Annual Conference, Enriching the Middle East’s Economic Future, in Doha, Qatar. The annual conference, held under the auspices of the Foreign Ministry of the State of Qatar, is an internationally recognized forum for government officials, active business and financial practitioners, and politicians and academics dealing with current economic, financial, political, and diplomatic issues.
CEP’s executive director dr. Gorazd Justinek actively participated in the panel discussion entitled “New U.S.-European Relations: What Does it Mean for the MENA Region?”, moderated by dr. Ersin Kalaycioglu of Sabanci University. The panellists Mr Torgeir E. Fjaertoft of the Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Ms Robin Wright of the US Institute of Peace/ Woodrow Wilson Center and Dr Gorazd Justinek of CEP, exchanged their views on the Translatlantic relations and their implications in the Middle East and Northern Africa.
13. 11. 2017 | PR, Youth
Centre for European Perspective was present at the Zagreb Youth Summit, which took place between 6 and 9 November at the Mimara museum in Zagreb. The Summit was organised by the Youth Initiative for Human Rights. In 2009, the first summit was held in Belgrade, followed by summits in Prishtina and Sarajevo in 2012 and 2015.
This year, the summit brought together 250 socially and politically active young individuals, who, in 13 panels, discussed current challenges that pose significant threats to the stability and advancement of democracy. The rise of of liberal autocracies, illiberal democracies and its consequences, populism, nationalism, the role of the youth and the millennial generation, were the main topics of the Summit.
Participants agreed that misuse of electoral processes and other democratic mechanisms resulted in decline of media and other freedoms, de-legitimisation of political opposition and civil society. They were united on common position that democracy, as a universal value, has to be defended and advanced universally.
10. 11. 2017 | PR
Between 9–10 November 2017, CEP hosts a regional strategic policy meeting to outline the priorities against Serious and Organized Crime in the Western Balkans. The outlined priorites will provide basis to plan the second pillar of the “Integrative Internal Security Governance”, where the PCC SEE Secretariat has been granted the role of Lead Partner and is in charge of coordination.
The IISG (Integrative Internal Security Governance) is a new approach to internal security governance capacity-building and reform introduced in the Western Balkan region. It is hosted by DCAF Ljubljana as of 8 September 2017. Criminal police and Ministry officials from Western Balkan beneficiaries and PCC SEE Contracting Parties, Europol, UNODC and other major international partners in this field prepared the policy basis to continue drafting the first multi-annual Integrated Plan of Action (iPA) of the 2nd IISG Pillar – the “Western Balkan Counter-Serious Crime Initiative – WBCSCi”.
The iPA will enable the WB Beneficiaries, the EU and the international community (donors of external assistance) to address the challenges of Serious and Organized Crime in the period 2018-2020 in coordinated manner and in line with the principle of regional ownership as provided by the IISG policy framework. The event, hosted by the CEP Slovenia, was supported by the Italian Ministry of the Interior, the German Association for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the PCC SEE Secretariat.
More about IISG at http://wb-iisg.com/.
8. 11. 2017 | Bled Strategic Forum, PR
On Friday, 17 November 2017, a roundtable discussion “The Evolving and Ever-present Cyber Security” will be taking place within the framework of the Bled Strategic Forum international conference in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia, Centre for European Perspective and Club Alpbach Senza Confini. The event will start with small refreshments at 16h in the Cafe of the City Museum of Ljubljana.
The roundtable will discuss main trends in cyber security and ways in which countries and companies are dealing with cyber threats. The ways in which IoT, block chain and cyber warfare are changing our lives and shaping our future will be explored.
The discussion will feature:
- Mr Daniel Cohen, Head of the Strategy program at the Institute for International Diplomacy and a researcher at Blavatnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Institute
- Major General Dobran Božič, Director of the Government Office for the Protection of Classified Information
- Mr Gorazd Božič, Slovenian Computer Emergency Response Team
- Mr Peter Geršak, International Business Machines Corporation, Slovenia
Please note, the discussion will be held in English.
RSVP: We kindly ask you to confirm your participation at by Tuesday, 14 November.
2. 11. 2017 | IECEU, PR
On November 8th, over a hundred participants will attend the conference ‘Effectiveness and Inclusivity of EU Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention’ at the Scotland House in Brussels. During the conference, policy makers, academics and civil society practitioners will present the findings of two EU-funded Horizon 2020 projects IECEU – Improving the Effectiveness of Capabilities in EU Conflict Prevention and WOSCAP – Whole-of-Society Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding.
Aiming to improve peacebuilding through sustainable, comprehensive and innovative means, the projects will present recommendations around the cases of Ukraine, Mali, Yemen, Kosovo, Georgia, Afghanistan, Palestinian Territories and Bosnia and Herzegovina through a series of panel discussions. The panels will address the EU effectiveness in conflict prevention through discussions around Security Sector Reform, Multi-Track Diplomacy, EU integrated approach, inclusivity and local ownership.
“Peacebuilding and conflict prevention need to involve a whole range of different actors in society. It is relevant because much of the discussion around intervention, state building, peacebuilding, conflict prevention, talks about issues like local ownership of policies, the legitimacy of interventions and the need for societal resilience. A whole of society approach speaks to that need to include the people dimension in peacebuilding, it is not just politics and policies, it is policies, politics and people”, said dr. Mary Martin, Senior Research Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Stefano Tomat, Head of Division of PRISM (Prevention of conflicts, Rule of law, SSR, Integrated approach, Stabilisation and Mediation) from the European External Action Service, will provide the official opening of the conference. After this, different panels will give insights in the results and recommendations of the WOSCAP and IECEU projects.
Dr. Rok Zupančič, University of Ljubljana, described IECEU project as a unique research, with nobody before analysing the CSDP missions and operations that extensively, while he is also looking forward hearing the results at the final conference.
WOSCAP project focused on three types of existing EU interventions, namely Multi‐Track Diplomacy, Security Sector Reform, and governance reform through a combination of desk and field research in Mali, Yemen, Georgia, Ukraine, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Guatemala and Honduras and produced a tailored set of recommendations to improve the EU’s civilian means for conflict prevention and peacebuilding.
IECEU analysed best practices and lessons learned of eight on-going and past European Union CSDP missions and operations in the Western Balkans (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo), Africa (Congo, Libya, South Sudan and Central African Republic), Palestinian Territories as well as Afghanistan with the aim of providing a catalogue of practices, new solutions and approaches for the EU to guarantee long-term stability through conflict prevention and peacebuilding with special focus on pooling and sharing as well as civil-military cooperation.
