Seminar
"EU Conflict Prevention:
Lessons Learned from the W. Balkans"
Athens, 4 - 7 May 2003
A seminar organized by the Hellenic Ministry of
Foreign Affairs
under the aegis of the Greek Presidency of the EU
and in cooperation with
the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy
and the ADB/ the Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in SEE.
REPORT
The Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe (CDRSEE)
co-organised with ELIAMEP a conference entitled, "EU Conflict Prevention:
Lessons Learned from the Western Balkans," in Athens, May 2003. Overall,
the participants described the conference as very interesting and a great
success. The Conflict Prevention conference brought together representatives
of governments and international institutions to advance the on-going
process towards EU conflict prevention, following on from a similar conference
in Helsingborg in August 2002. The result in Athens was a continued formal
commitment to conflict prevention.
From left to right, Sheila Cannon (CDRSEE, Projects Manager), Fotini
Bellou, (ELIAMEP, Analyst), Ambassador Alexandros Mallias (Hellenic MFA),
Anna Mateeva (Saferworld, Head of Arms and Security), Paul Risley (INTERNATIONAL
IDEA, Senior Programme Officer) |
The CDRSEE to date has organised two conferences under the aegis of the
Hellenic Presidency of the European Union: "Reconciling for the Future"
in April 2003 and "EU Conflict Prevention" in May 2003, both
of which feed into the Thessaloniki European Summit Meeting in June 2003
with concrete recommendations and conclusions. While the Reconciling for
the Future workshop resulted in specific recommendations articulated by
civil society from NGOs and other activists working in the field, the
Conflict Prevention conference was an opportunity to formally endorse
the Conflict Prevention work of governments and NGOs.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hellenic Republic, H.E. Georgios Papandreou
speaks during the conference. |
The most striking aspect of the Conflict Prevention conference,
especially obvious in light of the recommendations that came out of the
Reconciling for the Future workshop, was the large discrepancy between
the perspective of the international community and the civil society in
the Western Balkans. According to representatives of the European Commission,
the European Union and the OSCE, 'stabilisation' has been achieved in
the Western Balkans, and now the time is right to move on to 'integration.'
The civil society, represented at the conference by NGOs, did not agree.
Two of the 16 panel speakers, Gerald Knaus (European Stability Initiative)
and Andy Bearpark (UNMIK, Skopje), provided a much needed reality check;
it is not accurate to describe Kosovo, BiH, and FYR of Macedonia as 'success
stories' when there is even now the possibility that violence may break
out again.
The first day of the conference consisted of three high-level
panel presentations with experts speaking, namely 18 MEN, and not one
woman. This imbalance was criticised by several of the participants. The
Hellenic MFA set the criteria for speakers and rapporteurs that they should
be from EU countries, and they were for the most part, except for two
Americans.
The fact that such a conference was even held shows that
the EU values and supports conflict prevention. However, the very theme
of the conference was trivialised by the recent war in Iraq; such a high
level of funding, co-ordination, organisation, effort, skills and training
goes into creating violent conflict, while at the same time we are having
a conference giving lip-service to conflict prevention. |
