BELGRADE – The fourth annual Belgrade Security Conference (BSC) was opened on Monday in Belgrade. This year’s motto is “Pathways to Freedom.” The panel discussions over the next two days will address key global and regional topics, such as the political crisis in Serbia, transatlantic relations, US-China rivalry, EU enlargement, as well as the hybrid and armed conflicts that pose a serious threat to Europe.
Srđan Cvijić, President of the International Advisory Committee of the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP), said during the opening that 2025 is both a dark and menacing year, adding that in Serbia and many other countries around the world, it is also a year of renewed hope.
“Last year, as I stood on this very stage to open the conference, the first silent vigils for the Novi Sad victims were just beginning. None of us could have imagined that those scattered acts of defiance would grow into the largest and most enduring protest Serbia has seen in a generation. Meanwhile, the world, too, has continued to drift in a deeply troubling direction. We live in an era where the spectre of world war, even a nuclear war, is no longer a distant nightmare, but a real and terrifying possibility,” Cvijić said.
According to him, this year’s conference titled “Pathways to Freedom”, takes its title from the struggles of all those who today are searching for their own path toward liberty – from Serbia, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Palestine, to every other place where people resist oppression and seek dignity.
“We need to ask how to build freedom where it has been denied, how to defend freedom where it has been threatened, and how to preserve humanity in a world that too often seems to have lost it,” Cvijić said.
He added that this year’s conference confronts some of the most urgent questions of our time.
