INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE "THE FUTURE OF THE BALKANS - FROM STABILITY TO EURO-INTEGRATION"

1 JULY 2006, SOFIA

On 1 July 2006, Sofia hosts an international conference on the subject of "The Future of the Balkans - from stability to Euro-integration". The forum is organised by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs supported by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.

The participants in the forum were addressed by National Assembly Chairman Georgi Pirinski.

The conference was opened by the Chairman of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee Solomon Passy, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivailo Kalfin and the Director of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Moldova Wolfgang Sachsenroeder.

"The consolidation of the stability in the Western Balkans – a guarantee of their European perspective"; "South East Europe – cooperation dimension. From the Sofia Declaration of 1996 towards United Europe – results and perspectives"; and "The role of the international organizations for fostering the regional security and the stability in South East Europe" were the main topics during the conference.

The Kosovo Status – key to the stability in the Western Balkans; the stabilizing role of Serbia in the Western Balkans; the successful progress of the constitutional reform – a factor of the European integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina; South East Europe – cooperation dimension and the European integration of the SEE countries were among the subjects under discussion.

Attending the conference were Meglena Kuneva, Minister of European Affairs of Bulgaria; Umberto Ranieri, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies of Italy; Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania; Lutfi Haziri, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Local Government Administration of Kosovo PISG; Miodrag Vlahovic, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Montenegro; Bryan Hopkins, Strategic Coordinator to the SRSG of UN; parliamentarians; experts and representatives of the Foreign Affairs Ministries of Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Albania, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina; as well as of DG Enlargement - European Commission, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, NATO HQ and the Stability Pact for South East Europe.