The Chairperson of the Committee on International Relations and Emigrants Mr Miodrag Vuković, professor PhD, participated in the “Ninth International Conference of the European Centre for Peace and Development (ECPD)”, on reconciliation, tolerance, and human safety in the Balkans.

This year’s conference was dedicated to the topic: “New Balkans and Europe – Peace, Development, Integration” and it represented a segment of the international project “The Balkans in the 21^st Century – Paths of Building Peace and Stability in the Balkans”, implemented by ECPD.

Within the main topic, the issues of peace, development, international, interreligious relations, as well as the regional and international integration had been considered in a wider scope. The entire project encompasses the examination of possibilities and paths of international and interethnic reconciliation, tolerance and human safety.

Special attention was also paid to the post-crisis challenges, strategy, and the EU enlargement process and its influence on the new Balkans. The sessions placed particular significance on economic, cultural, and scientific cooperation between the countries in the Balkans.

Within the third session of the Conference, the Chairperson of the Committee on International Relations and Emigrants Mr Miodrag Vuković, professor PhD, held a speech on the topic “Regional Initiatives as a Path toward the New Cooperation in the Balkans”

In his address, Mr Vuković pointed out the importance of cooperation at the regional level, and emphasised that it represented one of the key elements of the integration process, in particular the process of stabilisation and association, as well as that the very speed of the European integration process at any rate depended on the mutual cooperation of the countries in the Balkans and their willingness to belong to the united Europe.

Mr Vuković also emphasised that with Croatia’s joining the EU, the region was entering the new stage that entails a new approach, pointing out that it was about the fact which was in every aspect encouraging and it opened new opportunities and types for cooperation. In its own way, it represented the stimulus for the countries that had not yet joined the EU to positively test, adapt, and promote their own realities and the possibilities of reaching the status that Croatia had already reached.

The fact that the long boarder of the EU existed, to which some of the countries in the region still outside the EU had access to, represented the new reality that was seeking many new solutions within this cooperation, concluded Mr Vuković.

The Conference was organised with the support and cooperation of the Government of Japan, and it was started with the opening address of H.E. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations and the current Chairperson of the ECPD Honorary Council; H.E. Takehiro Togo, professor PhD, a distinguished Japanese diplomat and the Chairperson of the ECPD Academic Council, as well as the address of H.E. Erhard Busek, professor PhD, a long-time Vice-Chancellor of Austria and previously Chief Coordinator of the Stability Pact for South East Europe.

The ECPD Ninth International Conference was attended by numerous distinguished scientists, diplomats, religious dignitaries, and theorists from almost every part of the world (Europe, America, Asia, and Africa).

The European Centre for Peace and Development (EPCD) of the University for Peace of the United Nations is an international education and research organisation from the UN academic system, which this year celebrates 30 years of its work.