Germia Hill Forum: South East Europe in a Multipolar Era

“South East Europe in a Multipolar Era” was the first edition of the inaugural conference of the Germia Hill Forum, held at Prishtina, Kosovo and organized jointly by ECFR Sofia and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kosovo.

Guests

Atifete Jahjaga, President of Kosovo

Hashim Thaci, Prime Minister of Kosovo

Enver Hoxhaj, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kosovo

Edmond Haxhinasto, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Albania

Gordon Bajnai, Former Prime Minister of Hungary

Nikola Poposki, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Macedonia

Nickolay Mladenov, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bulgaria

Par Stenback, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Finland

Samuel Zbogar, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Slovenia

Zoran Petrov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Macedonia

Adam Balcer, Programme Director, demosEUROPA, Poland

Dušan Reljić, Senior Research Associate, German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), Germany

Jordi Vaquer, Director, Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB), Spain

Oleg Levitin, Senior Political Councillor, EBRD

Péter Balázs, Director, Center for European Enlargement Studies, Central European University

Sir Geoffrey Nice, Temple Garden Chambers, UK

Hajredin Kuci, Deputy Prime Minister for Justice, Kosovo

Erhard Busek, Chairman of the Institute for the Danube and Central Europe, Vienna

Tim Judah, The Economist

Erhan Türbedar, Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV)

Jonas Parello-Plesner, Senior Policy Fellow, ECFR

Konstantin von Eggert, former Editor-in-Chief,  BBC Russian Service, Russia

Piro Misha, Director, Institute of Dialogue and Communication, Albania

Vlora Citaku, Minister of EU integrations, Kosovo

Thomas Tugendhat, Military Assistant to the Chief of the Defence Staff, MOD, UK

Cristian Ghinea, Romanian Centre for European Policies

Istvan Gyarmati, President and CEO, International Centre for Democratic Transition, Hungary

Kerem Öktem, University of Oxford

Tomáš Valášek,Director of Foreign Policy and Defence, Centre for European Reform, UK

Mimoza Kusari, Deputy Prime Minister, Kosovo

Dimitar Bechev, Senior Policy Fellow and Head of Sofia Office, ECFR

Daniel Korski, Senior Policy Fellow, London Office, ECFR

This year’s edition took stock of the key challenges associated with thechanging power landscape of South East Europe. It took address the following questions:

What are the prospects for the EU’s foreign policy now that the Eurocrisis is putting the Union under severe strain? Is the EU enlargement policy in South East Europe still credible?

What is the role of other actors involved in the Western Balkans such as Turkey, Russia and China? Are they challenging the EU, filling in gaps or actually helping and complementing the EU policy aimed at conflict resolution and integration? How does the Russo-Turkish rapprochement, theirincreasingly dense mutual trade and investment relations and diplomaticcooperation affect the Balkans? What implications will this have for Kosovo andthe other Yugoslav successor states?

 Finally, what are the broader challenges and prospects for security in and around Europe – now that the US is disengaging while the EU’s neighbourhood, especially North Africa and the Middle East, is in flux. What are the existingor potentialpoints of frictionbetween the EU andassertive players such as Turkey and Russia? What are the opportunities for extending cooperation?