On 12 June 2015, the South-east Europe Programme of ELIAMEP held a conference on the topic ‘Western Balkans: Back to Instability? Challenges and Prospects.’ The conference was organized in cooperation with the Kosovo Foundation for Open Society (KFOS) and with the kind support of KFOS, the British Council and Europe Direct. Distinguished speakers from Greece, Kosovo, Serbia and FYROM participated in the conference. ELIAMEP and KFOS’s joint study entitled ‘Being Greek, Being Kosovar…A Report on Mutual Perceptions’ was also presented. The project is the first that took into account parallel opinions in the two countries, as part of the research project ‘Building New Bridges in the Balkans: Understanding Misconceptions between Greece and Kosovo.’ The project was undertaken jointly by ELIAMEP in Athens and the Gani Bobi Centre in Pristina, with funding from the Kosovo Open Society Foundation (KFOS).
In-depth discussion touched on a number of issues such as international recognition of Kosovo’s independence and the Greek position, the ongoing YROM name issue between Athens and Skopje, recent unrest in FYROM and questions of democracy and international relations, the Pristina-Belgrade dialogue and the Europe perspective of Serbia, and the European perspective of the Western Balkans in General and the possible effectiveness of EU tools and policy in the region.
The event was held in English and Greek with simultaneous interpretation.
The agenda of the event is available here.
The report is available here.
The conference report is available here.
You can find more information about the South-East Europe Programme here.