Non profit
The right to be heard
A workshop on the EU Enlargement Policy and Civil Society in the Western Balkans
di Staff
The Balkan Civil Society Development Network (BCSDN) in partnership with Aprodev is organizing a workshop under the title “The Right to Be Heard: The EU Enlargement Policy and Civil Society in the Western Balkans”. The workshop will take place on 10th September, 2009 in Brussels.
The aim of the workshop is to discuss the current challenges faced by the countries in the Western Balkans and solutions to which local civil society organizations (CSOs) can contribute in solving. The workshop aims at bringing together around 40 representatives of EU institutions and local CSOs to enable a face-to-face debate on challenges and possibilities for CSOs role in the process.
It will be divided into an informal and a formal part.
The informal gathering, as a pre-event on 9th September, will feature a focused debate between representatives of local CSOs and EU platforms. What we hope is to bring together the expectations and experience from local CSOs from the Western Balkans and experience from EU platforms in Brussels in order to identify ways for cooperation and partnership to strengthen the voice of these organizations on EU level as well as to provide for strengthening of their voice at home.
This experience and transfer of know-how will then be brought to the formal part on 10th where we will engage with the EU institutions with two concrete issues, i.e. the support to civil society under the IPA instrument (s.c. Civil Society Facility) and the consultation issue (s.c. IPA Partnership principle) which we hope will enable improved inclusion of local CSOs in both processes.
A draft policy paper “The Successes and Failures of the EU-Pre-accession Policy in the Balkans: Support to Civil Society” will be presented on this occasion, which we hope will stimulate an interesting and productive debate and result in concrete recommendations on how local CSOs in the Western Balkans can be involved in the EU integration process of their countries and societies shared by both the local CSOs and the EU institution representatives.
For more information, visit the Balkan Civil Society Development Network website.
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