BELGRADE – The Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG) and the Clingendael Institute, supported by the European Fund for the Balkans are organising the public event “The Netherlands, the Western Balkans, and the EU” on June 6 in Belgrade.
The event is an occasion for the policy experts from the Western Balkans and the EU, civil society actors and diplomatic corps to discuss the EU enlargement, the foreign influence in the Western Balkans and the bilateral disputes in the region.
The event will be opened by Aleksandra Tomanić, Executive Director of the European Fund for the Balkans and H.E. Henk van den Dool, Ambassador of the Netherlands to Serbia.
On the first panel, Wouter Zweers from the Clingendael Institute, Jan Marinus Wiersma from the Clingendael Institute and Srđan Majstorović from the European Policy Centre and a BiEPAG Member, will discuss what are the real obstacles to the EU enlargement and whether this stuck process can be overturned.
The speakers of the second panel Nikola Burazer from the European Western Balkans, Vuk Velebit from Talas.rs and Marko Savković from the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence will discuss what is the reality, what are the causes and consequences of foreign influence in the Western Balkans.
In the third panel, BiEPAG members Donika Emini from the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies, Srđan Cvijić from the Open Society European Policy Institute and Zoran Nechev from the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis” will discuss regional cooperation and good neighbourly relations.
Their focus will be on the negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo on land swapping, in the context of democratisation of the region.
The discussion is a follow-up of the event that took place in The Hague last week as a product of close cooperation of the BiEPAG and Clingendael Institute.