Around 150 participants from civil society, European and national institutions from the Western Balkans and Turkey were brought together for the conference “Civil Society & Beyond: A Joint Dialogue on the European Path” that took place in Belgrade, 25th-26th February 2016. The Conference was organized by the European Movement International and European Movement in Serbia, in partnership with TACSO and the Serbian European Integration Office. From BCSDN participated our Policy and Advocacy Officer, Ms. Biljana Spasovska.
The two-day conference was opened by Serbian high level political representatives including the Speaker of the National Assembly – Ms. Maja Gojković and the Serbian Prime Minister – Mr. Aleksandar Vučić, and opening remakrs delivered H.E. Michael Davenport, Head of the European Union Delegation to the Republic of Serbia, Mr. Jo Leinen MEP, President of the European Movement International and Prof. Dr. Mihailo Crnobrnja, President of the European Movement in Serbia.
The Conference was organized in 3 Plenary Sessions, 6 workshops and interactive ending session of World Café. The plenary sessions focused on the issues (I) Multilateral Dialogue between EU and Enlargement Countries; (II) Civil Society Heard: National Conventions and Consultation Mechanisms in European Integration Process; and (III) Lessons Learnt in EU accession: How to regain Enlargement Momentum. The 6 workshops were divided in 2 sessions with 3 parallel workshops happening in the time. The first day workshops were devoted to: Consultation and Cooperation during the EU accession process; Monitoring Change; and Programming of EU Financial Assistance – where mechanisms for CS involvement in the programming of EU assistance were discussed. The topics of the second day workshops were: Rule of Law; Economic Governance and Competitiveness and Public Administration Reform. The World Café at the end, served as an opportunity for exchange of opinions among participants discussion for added value activities or joint actions on topics and issues arising from the previous conference sessions.
The agenda of the conference can be found here and highlights from the live debate are available also on Twitter under the hashtags #CSbeyond and #EurMove.