1. A European Balkans?
- Author:
- Daniel Serwer, Jacques Rupnik, and Boris Shmelev
- Publication Date:
- 01-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for European Policy Studies
- Abstract:
- The Chairman recalled the reasons for holding this particular session. On the one hand, at the Thessaloniki meeting of the European Council (June 2003), the prospect was laid out of the Balkans being included, over time, within the European Union; hence, the title of the session. How that vision is to be fulfilled is obviously very much open to question, which is indeed one of reasons underlying the work of the new International Commission on the Balkans chaired by former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato. On the other hand, short-term events are going to put the Balkans at the centre of European concerns over the coming months in the run-up to the final status discussions in mid-2005: the Macedonian referendum in early November, the deployment of European Union forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina (operation Altea) in December and the rising expectations of Kosovar Albanians following the October 2004 elections. To introduce the session three papers were presented.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Bosnia, Eastern Europe, Balkans, and Macedonia