17. 3. 2021 | Bled Strategic Forum, PR


 

British Embassy Ljubljana, Centre for European Perspective – CEP and Bled Strategic Forum – BSF are pleased to invite you to the fourth event in the FUTURE PERFECT series titled:

 
How Western are the Western Balkans? The path to Euro-Atlantic integration
 
Tuesday, March 23, 12:00 (CET)
 
 
The future of the Western Balkans will shape the future of Europe. But during the pandemic, actors with competing values and principles have actively pursued their own agendas in the region. Have Europe and the West missed an opportunity to bring the Western Balkans closer?
Is there political will in Europe for effective strategic engagement with the region? And how can the region, with the rest of Europe, renew momentum for Euro-Atlantic integration – in the face of the influence and interests of other global players?
As the pandemic’s horizon comes into view, we invite you to join the latest episode in our “Future Perfect” series. The British Embassy Ljubljana and Centre for European Perspective will host a discussion with leading British, Slovene and regional experts to explore potential paths for the Western Balkans – and what this means for the future of Europe.
 

PANELLISTS: 

  • Mr Matt Baugh, Director, Political & Security at the UK Mission to the EU in Brussels
  • Mr Peter Grk, National Coordinator for the Western Balkans, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia
  • Mr Zoran Nechev, Head of the Center for European Integration, Institute for Democracy/Senior Researcher, Member of BiEPAG

Please join us via Zoom at the link below.

This will be the fourth event of the FUTURE PERFECT event series, organized by the British Embassy in Ljubljana, in cooperation with CEP and BSF. The FUTURE PERFECT series will gather experts to ask big questions about our post-COVID future. For more about the series, follow CEP on Facebook and Twitter or Bled Strategic Forum on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram or follow the hashtag #FuturePerfectSeries.
EUCTI’s Kick-off Meeting

EUCTI’s Kick-off Meeting

12. 3. 2021 | EUCTI, PR

The official kick-off meeting of the EU Civilian Training initiative (EUCTI) project virtually took place on 11 March 2021. The meeting welcomed eight project partners as well as representatives of EU structures, OSCE African Union, UN and EU CSDP missions. The meeting provided a platform for intense knowledge exchange through past and present experiences in the field of civilian crisis management and cooperation strategies that will provide guidance for the project.

The EUCTI project, co-funded by the European Commission through under Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI.2), Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace, Conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and crisis preparedness component. The overall budget of the project is 2,5 million EUR. The EUCTI project consortium consists of eight partners: Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution (ASPR), Clingendael – the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Crisis Management Centre Finland (CMC), EGMONT – The Royal Institute for International Relations from Belgium, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (SSSA) from Italy, Center for International Peace Operations (ZIF) from Germany, Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) from Sweden and CEP from Slovenia as its coordinator.  All consortium partners participated previously in the Europe’s New Training Initiative for Civilians Crisis Management (ENTRi) activities and the EUCTI will draw on this experience.

The kick-off meeting was opened by the welcome speech of Markko Kallonen, Head of the EUCTI Secretariat, Katja Geršak, Executive Director of Centre for European Perspective, Matej Marn, Head of the Department for Security Policy at the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Marc Fiedrich, Head of Unit, Service for Foreign Policy Instruments at European Commission. They emphasized the importance of training and capacity building for effective CSDP missions. The project can build on ENTRI legacy, harmonize the actions and ensure close collaboration among all stakeholders.

After presentations of project partners: Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution (ASPR), Clingendael – the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Crisis Management Centre Finland (CMC), EGMONT – The Royal Institute for International Relations from Belgium, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (SSSA) from Italy, Center for International Peace Operations (ZIF) from Germany, Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) from Sweden and Centre for European Perspective (CEP), the meeting touched upon how the initiative fits into larger EU CCM (training) framework and on TRAs and their importance in training design and for EUCTI. EU CSDP Training Missions, OSCE, African Union, and UN representatives contributed to the meeting with their valuable insights about the current training needs, the impact of COVID-19, and the training delivery.

Over the next three years, 30 training activities, developed and designed specifically for the mission that will voice a training need, and implemented in the mission or in the region. Several other project activities, related to the development of new pedagogical approaches to the training, evaluation, and standardization, as well as support for 3rd country training institutions, will also be accomplished.

EUCTI Kick-off Meeting

ANNOUNCEMENT: Kick-off of a new civilian crisis management project – EUCTI

ANNOUNCEMENT: Kick-off of a new civilian crisis management project – EUCTI

5. 3. 2021 | EUCTI, PR

Centre for European Perspective has been active in the field of civilian crisis management since its establishment. In 2008 it was proud to be nominated as the Slovene member of the European Group on Training (EGT) that in a couple of years evolved into a Europe’s New Training Initiative for Civilian Crisis Management (ENTRi) project. 13 partners from the EU have, in a period of nine years, implemented numerous training activities, developed sophisticated certification system and contributed to the harmonization and standardization of training that professionals are receiving before their deployment to the field. CEP took over different training activities, from generic such as pre-deployment or train the trainers training, to the specialized courses, such as hostile environment awareness training (HEAT), mentoring in CCM and gender equality and gender mainstreaming course. On top of that, several e-learning and off-the-shelf training packages were delivered. With great honour, CEP was appointed as a coordinator of the new training project that will build on the above mentioned ENTRi legacy – European Union Civilian Training Activities.

EU Civilian Training Initiative (EUCTI) is an EU-financed project that commenced with its activities in January 2021 and is planned to last for three years. Its main objective is to contribute to an enhanced position of the EU as a peace actor through better-prepared professionals that are supporting the EU CSDP missions in achieving its mandates. This will be reached through almost 30 training activities, developed and designed specifically for the mission that will voice a training need, and implemented in the mission or the region. Several other project activities are foreseen, mainly related to the evaluation, development of new pedagogical approaches to the training as well as support for third-country training institutions.

The EUCTI project consortium consists of eight partners: Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution (ASPR), Clingendael – the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Crisis Management Centre Finland (CMC), EGMONT – The Royal Institute for International Relations from Belgium, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (SSSA) from Italy, Center for International Peace Operations (ZIF) from Germany, Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) from Sweden and CEP from Slovenia as its coordinator.  All consortium partners participated previously in Europe’s New Training Initiative for Civilians Crisis Management (ENTRi) activities and the EUCTI will draw on this experience.

As organizing demand-driven training activity in current times is not the easiest task, a virtual kick-off meeting will be held on Thursday, March 11, 2021. It aims to bring together all key stakeholders that will support, shape and streamline the EUCTI activities. On one hand, it will give the floor to the European Union institutions (the European Commission and European External Action Service) that will explain how they see the EUCTI activities fit in the bigger picture of the Common Security and Defence Policy. On the other hand, project partners will be invited to present their experiences and adaptation to the COVID-19 reality that affected greatly the training actions. Last, but not least, EU CSDP missions, the project’s most direct beneficiaries, and other international actors present on the ground (the UN, OSCE and African Union), will get the floor to share their training needs, practical insights from their side of the world.

 

Further information about the project can be found here, you can follow EUCTI on Facebook & Twitter or on the new EUCTI web site – coming soon so stay tuned! 

Talent attraction and retention are keys for city competitiveness

Talent attraction and retention are keys for city competitiveness

1. 3. 2021 | PR

To where and why do talents disappear from our cities? And why is it a problem? The new generation talents are extremely mobile, as they are looking for the best opportunities not only locally. They live and develop their talents at places, where they find the best circumstances based on their own expectations. Those cities where there are a lot of highly educated professionals prove to be more competitive and thriving. Therefore, it is important for our cities to make concrete steps in order to attract and retain talents.

Due to the increasing globalisation, the flow of talents is becoming more and more intense. While a few decades ago the young people who freshly graduated from universities typically chose a place for living between their hometown and university town, nowadays their choice can be almost any town in the world. Since talents possess special knowledge and skills, enterprises put an increasing emphasis on obtaining them, practically they compete for them. Young talents are expected to provide new approaches, creative perspective, out of the box solutions for enterprises, which mean a competitive advantage for them.

These are the main messages from the online conference of the TalentMagnet project – being implemented in frames of the Danube Transnational Programme – that took place on 24th February 2021. During the conference, more than 162 participants from more than 20 countries were involved in discussions with the aim of drawing the attention of cities to the importance of talent management.

According to the speeches that presented international good practices (Stuttgart, Ostrava, Velenje, Varazdin, Klaipeda, Helsinki), city leaders and developers should realize the significance of talent attraction and retention. Without a doubt, this is a new task for cities, although, successful cities have already built-in talent attraction and retention activities into their operation – as Béla Kézy, urban development expert, highlighted in his keynote speech.

The final target group of the TalentMagnet project are young talents, whose development is a priority for the project. In the afternoon session of the conference 86 talents from 21 countries participated, and in 11 small groups, they identified the factors that make a city talent-friendly. They found that new generation talents choose a place for a living taking into account a complex set of criteria, that includes opportunities offered by a city: its attractiveness; appearance; structure; opportunities for mobility; security; potentials for accommodation, culture, work, entertainment, recreation; its image, etc.

Project co-funded by the European Union funds (ERDF, IPA, ENI).   

 

[Webinar] Radicalization and Violent Extremism Across Borders: An Ongoing Threat

[Webinar] Radicalization and Violent Extremism Across Borders: An Ongoing Threat

25. 2. 2021 | PR, Security

The Euro-Atlantic Council of Slovenia, the Politics and Society Institute in Jordan and the Centre for European Perspective in Slovenia are jointly organizing a webinar titled:

 

 Radicalization and Violent Extremism Across Borders: An Ongoing Threat

March 11, 14.00–15.00 (CET) 

  

REGISTER HERE

 

The persistent threat of radicalization and violent extremism is highlighting the vulnerability of our societies today to the challenges of intolerance, hatred and fear. Radicalization is a reflection of societal polarization, as well as a reflection of deep and rapid changes of perceptions, values and behaviour, where violence is becoming an acceptable tool for solving conflicts.

How is this phenomenon going to impact our society?

Join our panel of experts in a webinar to:

  • Discuss the threat of radicalization and violent extremism in Slovenia, Kosovo and Jordan and their wider regions;
  • Underline potential similarities, differences and connections between violent extremism in these countries and their respective regions;
  • Address how to reduce the risk of individual indoctrination to violent extremism and radicalization; and
  • Propose ideas on how to deal with these challenges.

 

Speakers:

  • Dr Mohammad Abu Rumman, Politics and Society Institute, Associate Expert and Writer on Political Islam and Violent Extremism
  • Dr Florian Qehaja, Kosovar Center for Security Studies, Chair of the Board
  • Dr Iztok Prezelj, Euro-Atlantic Council of Slovenia, President & Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Vice-Dean

Moderator: Katja Geršak, Centre for European Perspective, Executive Director

 

Please join us via Zoom at the link below.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

 

 

 

For more about the event, follow CEP on Facebook and Twitter, you are also invited to follow the Euro-Atlantic Council of Slovenia on Facebook and the Politics and Society Institute on Facebook and Twitter.

CEP at the Discussion of Prospects for Joint Development Cooperation in Western Balkans

CEP at the Discussion of Prospects for Joint Development Cooperation in Western Balkans

22. 2. 2021 | PR, Slovenian Development Assistance

On February 19, CEP joined a meeting, organized at the initiative of the Slovene Embassy in Tokyo, focused on ‘Enhancing International Development Cooperation between Japan and Slovenia in the Western Balkans (WB)’.

As one of the official channels for implementing Slovenia’s international development cooperation, we joined the representatives from the Foreign Ministry of Affairs of Japan, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Foreign Ministry of Affairs of Slovenia, Centre for Excellence in Finance (CEF), and ITF Enhancing Human Security to discuss possible ways of merging our knowledge and enhancing international development cooperation between Japan and Slovenia in the Western Balkans.

The aim of the meeting was to look at possible ways of enhancing cooperation between Slovenia and Japan in the Western Balkans through institutions based in Slovenia and under the framework of the International Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid of Slovenia.

At the meeting, CEP Executive Director Katja Geršak presented the work of CEP and our key focus areas in the Western Balkans and Ukraine, and expressed interest to further explore opportunities for possible cooperation with Japan in facilitating development agenda in the Western Balkans.

The meeting ended with a joint agreement of all attendees to continue the dialogue and identify possible future development projects for a further deepening of cooperation between the two countries.