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.
Working Group 3
Building Partnerships/Networks on Conflict
Prevention. From Helsingborg to Athens
Conclusions reported by Sheila Cannon, Projects
Manager, Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe (CDRSEE)
In making the conclusions for Working Group 3 - Building
Partnerships/Networks on Conflict Prevention, we acknowledge that there
is a discrepancy between the perspective of the civil society in conflict
prone areas and the governments and inter-governmental institutions. In
order to address this discrepancy, there must be a two-way flow of information
between civil society and field offices of international organisations,
and this is the responsibility of everyone involved.
The Carnegie Commission on preventing Deadly Conflict concludes:
"the prevention of deadly conflict is, over the long term, too hard
- intellectually, technically, and politically - to be the responsibility
of any single institution or government, no matter how powerful. Strengths
must be pooled, burdens shared, and labour divided among actors."
It is a practical necessity that we all work together in finding solutions
and ensuring a lasting peace.
We also emphasise that the conclusions of our group are
made in the context of an ongoing process of conflict prevention efforts,
as reflected in the title of the working group: from Helsingborg to Athens.
The EU programme for the Prevention of Violent Conflicts,
which was endorsed by the Goteborg European Council in June 2001 outlined
that the EU must build and sustain mutually reinforcing and effective
partnerships for prevention with the UN, the OSCE and other international
and regional organisations as well as civil society. A number of practical
measures are listed in the programme.
The EU conference in Helsingborg in August 2002 defined
an agenda - a common commitment - for common action based on common values.
These common values, which are enshrined in international law, including
norms on human right and international humanitarian law, are matters of
immediate and legitimate concern to all.
As laid down in the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe
respect for the commitments undertaken within the UN, the OSCE and the
Council of Europe constitutes one of the foundations of international
order.
The objectives of the Stability Pact aim at addressing root
causes of violent conflicts by pledging co-operation on issues such as
- democracy, human rights, and the rule of law
- peaceful and good neighbourly relations
- preserving multi-ethnic states and protecting minorities
- economic development.
It is evident that much has been accomplished already. Instruments
of conflict prevention already exist as we heard in detail during yesterday's
panel presentations. But the challenge that we identified was that although
there is adequate information between those making the policy and those
doing the fieldwork, in fact maybe an excess of information, there needs
to be a more harmonised political will and better and more effective partnerships
when it comes to implementation between international institutions, inter-governmental
organisations, local authorities, Governments, and NGOs working in the
field.
Recommendations/conclusions
Our goal in creating these six specific conclusions is to
see how we can add value to the ongoing work and to the existing mechanisms
and structures.
- Enhance long-term pre-conflict efforts, in particular
focus should be put on consolidating peace via inter-ethnic and inter-religious
dialogues, education, especially history education, arts & culture,
and long term reconciliation initiatives such as "Reconciling for
the Future," recently launched by the Stability Pact.
- Strengthen the conflict prevention capacity of local
authorities and governments in the countries involved in crisis. Joint
actions have to support institution building at the national level;
- Improve linkages and flows of communication towards
more genuine and effective interaction between NGOs and governments,
between Inter-governmental Institutions, the business community and
the academic community in the implementation of the conflict prevention
agenda;
- Organise joint assessment missions of donor agencies
to areas of potential conflict areas in order to have a unified analysis
and response to crises.
- Improve the existing structures (rather than creating
new ones) for information sharing, consultation, policy dialogue between
governments, civil society, and international institutions;
- Engage already existing networks in EU Conflict Prevention,
such as the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) NGO Working Group
on conflict management and prevention which includes 78 NGOs.
One issue raised and not resolved: what lessons can be exported
to other regions? We didn't reach a conclusion, but we raised the important
point that in other regions the situation is different since the 'carrot'
of EU accession does not exist. |
