International conference „Eastern Partnership: Towards Civil Society Forum“

On the occasion of the EU Eastern Partnership summit, the Association for International Affairs in cooperation with its partners organised an international conference named “Eastern Partnership: Towards Civil Society Forum”. This official side event of the Czech EU was supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic.

The main goal of this expert conference was to mediate dialogue between the EU member countries’ and Eastern Partnership countries‘ civil society representatives on the significance, contents and implementation of the initiative in practice, and formulate concrete recommendations for the dynamic development of this dimension of the European Neighbourhood Policy.

More than 160 distinguished guests – experts from the Eastern Partnership region as well as the European Union - took part in the conference. The event was opened by Karel Schwarzenberg, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. The audience was also addressed by EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU Special Representatives Pierre Morel and Peter Semneby, ambassador of  Sweden Catherine von Heidenstam, ambassador of Poland Jan Pastwa and others.

The policy recommendations formulated by the conference workshops were distributed to the delegations of the official Eastern Partnership summit in Prague on 7 May, 2009.

More information and photos will follow soon.