11. 12. 2020 | POTC, PR, Security
Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as a major global crisis. Consequently, it has led to a number of restrictive measures in an effort to tackle the virus and accordingly, it affected international missions and operations worldwide.
This brought about a number of unprecedented challenges in the field of military mobility.
The Military Mobility Workshop, which took place in a virtual manner on 10th of December 2020, was kicked off by a welcome address and introductory remarks by Mr Valter Vrečar, M.Sc, Acting Director-General of the Defence Affairs Directorate, Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Slovenia and Colonel Anže Rode, Deputy Chief of Staff for Support, Slovenian Armed Forces. They both emphasized the importance of cooperation and coordination, also through workshops like this.
In the morning session, representatives of eight countries held presentations on experiences, lessons learned, legal limitations and possible improvements of an existing international framework. In the afternoon session participants were put in two syndicate groups in which specific topics built around military mobility in case of COVID-19 were discussed. On the basis of the outcomes, a set of recommendations were drafted, finalized and shared by the Republic of Slovenia that is currently presiding the Central European Defence Cooperation (CEDC).
The workshop was used as a platform for an exchange of lessons learned, views and ideas on improving military mobility in a situation of the evacuation of military and civilian personnel from missions and operations in the event of a COVID-19 infection. Its aim was to better address shortfalls and gaps of national and international policies, procedures and practices in the field of the military mobility with particular focus on national operational aspects and decision-making processes referring to legal, administrative and procedural constraints.
The workshop was co-organized by Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Slovenia and the Centre for European Perspective in the framework of the Central European Defence Cooperation (CEDC).
9. 12. 2020 | PR
With the current COVID-19 situation, the ‘new normality’ of project kick-offs is going virtual. And that is exactly what D-Care Labs project, where CEP is a project partner, did on the 20th October 2020.
With more than 180 people attending the virtual kick-off in a beautiful 3D environment created by a Serbian start-up CollectiVibe, the D-Care Labs event began with the presentation of the vision of D-Care Labs project by Mr André Peters, representative of the lead partner Diakonie Baden and a video address by Ms Theresa Schopper, State Minister responsible for policy coordination in the Baden-Württemberg State Ministry.
The participants also heard more about the Danube Transnational Programme (DTP) by Mr Marius Valentin Niculae, Project Officer at the Joint Secretariat of the DTP.
With the welcomes underway, Ms Katja Vonhoff, Project Manager at Diakonie Baden presented the activities of the DTP project and all project partners, alongside their associated partners and pawed the way for the presentation of two projects with whom D-Care Labs can learn and develop synergies – project CD Skills, presented by Ms Jasmina Dolinšek from the City of Maribor and Dr Jernej Dolinšek from University Medical Centre Maribor and project Finance4SocialChange, presented by Dr Volker Then from the University of Heidelberg.
With COVID-19 strongly affecting the activities of the project, the current pandemic was also a strong focus of the regional D-Care Labs breakout sessions, with participants discussing the problems caused by COVID-19 pandemic in the field of home care and presentations of regional lab concepts as means of problem-solving.
The second part of the event was a plenary discussion focused on the contribution of European collaboration to problem-solving in the social service sector and how European collaboration can support (inter-)regional social innovation processes.
The panel participants Ms Marie-Anne Paraskevas from Directorate General Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion at the European Commission, Ms Leonetta Pajer from the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Serbia, Ms Heather Roy from Eurodiacona, Mr Jörg Mirtl from Priority Area 9 »People and Skills« of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region and Mr Teo Petričević from Act Group and D-Care Labs partner Croatia spoke about their work priorities, the meaning of social innovation from their individual perspective and what possibilities they see for European collaboration on a transnational, regional or national level.
Download the press release in pdf here.
Follow D-Care Labs on the official DTP website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or YouTube.
8. 12. 2020 | Macedonia - corruption, Macedonia - Finance, Macedonia - Resources, North Macedonia - RoL, PR
North Macedonia strengthens capacities for financial investigations
More about the project in Slovenian language.
Slovenian development aid to the Republic of North Macedonia is being successfully continued, with adjustments for following measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. A workshop for rule of law agencies on the financial investigation was held in North Macedonia from 23 to 27 November 2020. A few Slovenian and Macedonian representatives also participated remotely.
At the workshop, participants, with a practical approach and through case studies, focused on the area of data needed to conduct financial investigations. The workshop ended on 28 November 2020, with a meeting of the heads of the bodies responsible for financial investigations. A feasibility study on improvements in data needed for financial investigations in North Macedonia is also under preparation.
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
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.
