Autumn kicked in with the ELIAMEP 15th European Seminar, a dense 3-day brainstorming session with key EU and global experts discussing challenges and prospects of the European Union, the new European Agenda, and the need for greater European sovereignty.
“Events dear boy, events” shifted our attention to the new crises in our neighborhood.
The Turkish incursion into Syria, and the aggressive initiatives of the Erdogan regime, directed our focus to the emerging security challenges in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Articles, papers, interviews, workshops, and public interventions by ELIAMEP experts have sought to understand strategic dilemmas, to analyze implications for the broader region, for the EU-Turkey and Greco-Turkish relations, which have taken a turn to the worse.
ELIAMEP has long established a strong footprint in the Western Balkans, steadily supporting the Balkans European accession prospect. We analyzed the implications of the European Council’s October decision to postpone the launch of accession negotiations for North Macedonia and Albania, in conferences (here), reports (here, here), and series of articles and interviews (here, here, here).
Our program on migration remains a leading ELIAMEP priority, seeking to comprehend the complex dimensions of a huge challenge for Greece and Europe, through workshops, reports (here, here, here) and public comments (here, here).
Greece’s participation as the 17th member in the 17+1 initiative, and the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping in Athens, brought China at the epicenter of interest. ELIAMEP hosted meetings with Chinese delegations, published papers, articles and interviews, and operated as a main contact point with the international media regarding EU-China and bilateral relations with Greece.
ELIAMEP remains an open window for understanding the European and global reality. In our newly launched “Ambassadors Circle”, we were honored to welcome (in order of appearance) the Ambassadors of the People’s Republic of China, the USA, and the Russian Federation.
Aspiring to be present in the global climate debate, ELIAMEP joined forces with the Foundation for Global Governance Sustainability (FOGGS) to establish the Greek Forum for Sustainable Development (ELFOVA). Our first event, on agriculture, climate change and sustainable development, was launched in Sparta, in an implicit recognition of the need not to underestimate your opponents.
We take particular pride in being a pioneering organization in Greece not only to conduct research on gender but also to incorporate a Gender Equality Plan in our day-to-day operations.
We did much more. We trained MPs from the EU and the W. Balkans on EU enlargement, journalists from Northern Greece on Greek-German relations and the EU, and high school students from all over Greece on a simulation of EU institutions. We publicly presented two reports: on the Prespa agreement implementation and on Fiscal Reforms. And discussed whether Europe is a Chimera, and how EU Cohesion Policy is changing our lives.
On many of the above we joined forces with a multitude of think tanks and organizations from Europe and the Balkans, defending our title as one of the “best networked” think tanks in Europe.