---

On October 5, the Balkan Trust for Democracy, in cooperation with the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence and the European Integration Office of the Government of Serbia, hosted a conference entitled “Serbia On the Road to Europe – 10 Years After.”  The conference drew high-level representation from political, diplomatic, and civil society communities to mark the tenth anniversary of the removal of Slobodan Milosevic from office through peaceful citizen protests.

 

Following opening remarks by President Boris Tadić, four panel discussions were held. These concentrated on the progress made by Serbia in the past ten years, Serbia’s perspective on the European Union, and regional cooperation in Southeastern Europe. Concluding remarks were made by Prime Minister of Greece, George Papandreou. The first panel included Božidar Đelić, Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration, Government of the Republic of Serbia; François Heisbourg, Special Advisor, Foundation for Strategic Research, Republic of France; Goran Svilanović, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Coordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities, OSCE Secretariat in Vienna; and Kenneth Wollack, President of the National Democratic Institute for Democratic Affairs. The panel was moderated by Pavol Demeš, Senior Transatlantic Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
The second panel brought together Vuk Jeremić, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia, and Mikuláš Dzurinda, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovakia. The panel was moderated by Ivan Vejvoda, Executive Director of the Balkan Trust for Democracy. The third panel included Jelko Kacin, Member of the European Parliament and Rapporteur for Serbia; Vincent Degert, Head of the European Union Delegation of the Republic of Serbia; Tanja Miščević, Advisor to the Minister of Defence for European Integration, former Director of the European Integration Office of the Government of Serbia; Gert Weisskirchen, Professor at the University of Potsdam; and Ivan Knežević, of the European Movement in Serbia. The panel was moderated by Milica Delević, Director of the European Integration Office, Government of the Republic of Serbia. The fourth panel included Eduard Kukan, Member of the European Parliament and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovakia; Gordana Čomić, Deputy Speaker, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia; Remzi Lani, Executive Director, Albanian Media Institute, Tirana; Jelica Minić, Deputy Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council, Sarajevo; Gerald Knaus, European Stability Initiative, Istanbul; and Knut Neumayer, Program Director of the ERSTE Foundation, Vienna. The panel was moderated by Hedvig Morvai-Horvat, Executive Director of the European Fund for the Balkans. In his concluding remarks, Prime Minister Papandreou spoke of the opportunity for increased cooperation between Greece and the Western Balkans, and stated, “Today, I stand before you and commit myself again, that I will continue the battle to ensure that Serbia arrives in her natural home, the European Union, and as soon as possible… It is impossible to think of the European project, the peace project that we are, the democratic project that we are, that it could be complete without the countries of the Western Balkans being part of the European Union.”