WASHINGTON – ON Tuesday, 30 April, Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG), School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and European Fund for the Balkans will host a discussion titled Western Balkans: Managing Challenges Ahead in US capital.
The event, beginning at 9 a.m. (3 p.m. CET), will try to answer the questions of what will be the role of the EU’s transformative power in the region in the coming years and how will Western Balkans deal with their security challenges and past conflicts.
“While the rise of populism and related uncertainty about its institutional design have fostered a sense of enlargement fatigue in Brussels, the EU’s is still perceived as the desired endgame for the Western Balkans”, the announcement reads.
However, it also reminds that a sporadic reluctance from Brussels is opening the doors to competing regional powers to set foot in the region.
Welcome remarks will be delivered by Daniel Serwer, Director of the Conflict Management Program (SAIS) and Igor Bandović, Senior Programme Manager of the European Fund for the Balkans, while the keynote speaker will be Florian Bieber, BiEPAG coordinator and Professor of Southeast European History and Politics at the University of Graz.
The event will consist of three panel dealing with European future of the Western Balkans, managing conflicts in the region and overcoming security challenges and foreign interference, respectively.
The speakers’ list includes BiEPAG members Srđan Cvijić, Senior Policy Analyst at the Open Society European Policy Institute in Brussels, Jovana Marović, Executive Director of Poltikon from Podgorica, Zoran Nechev, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Democracy Societas Civilis from Skopje and Tena Prelec, Research Associate at the LSE European Institute.