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Dialogue Southeast Europe

Our Mission
Seven members of the FES Dialogue Southeast Europe project team pose for a formal group photo in front of white blinds. In the back row, from left to right, stand Selma Šehović, Saša Vasić, Ema-Džejna Smolo-Zukan, and Harun Cero. In the front row, seated at a wooden table from left to right, are Lejla Garaplija, Sarah Hees-Kalyani, and Jasmina Pirija.
Creator: FES / Admir Kuburović

Our Mission

After more than two decades of engagement in southeastern Europe, the FES recognizes that the challenges and problems still facing this region can best be resolved through a shared regional framework. Our commitment to advancing our core interests in democratic consolidation, social and economic justice and peace through regional cooperation, has since 2015 been strengthened by establishing an infrastructure to coordinate the FES' regional work out of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina: the Regional Dialogue Southeast Europe (Dialogue SOE).

To that end, Dialogue SOE provides analysis of shared challenges in the region and develops suitable regional programs and activities in cooperation with the respective FES offices. Our work is conducted in close cooperation with colleagues and partners across the region. Activities are jointly implemented and overseen by either an FES office or Dialogue SOE. Furthermore, we integrate our regional work into joint initiatives with our colleagues in Berlin and Brussels. We aim to inform and be informed by the efforts of both local and international organizations in order to further our work in southeastern Europe as effectively as possible.

Our regional initiatives are advanced through three broad working lines:

Our website provides information about individual projects within each of these working lines, past events, and future initiatives.

Our Areas of Work

Just Cry for Justice
Creator: We Cry for Justice by David Haigh - License: CC BY 2.0

Social Democratic Politics and Values

Dialogue SOE is committed to advancing social democratic policies and values in southeastern Europe. Our work in this field is based upon youth exchange and political academy programs.

Ne u EU - Enlargement Policy Trash
Creator: Nel Pavletić / License: Pixel Media d.o.o.

Social and Economic Justice

Substantive democratic governance practices are rooted in fair and equitable economic arrangements. Social justice, more broadly, is intrinsic to the regional agenda the FES advances through its respective offices and individual projects.

Progressive Peace Policy

Peace and stability initiatives represent a decades-long cornerstone of FES work in southeastern Europe. Recent events have only reaffirmed the centrality of southeast European stability within the broader continental security paradigm.

Socio-Ecological Transformation
Creator: Azra Kadic

Socio-Ecological Transformation in SEE

The FES Dialogue Southeast Europe aims to address social challenges in climate and energy policy in the region.

Latest Publications

  • Publication
  • Publication Social and Economic Justice

Synopsis of the flat tax rates in the region of South East Europe

The main purpose of this Brochure: “Synopsis of the Flat Tax Rates in the Region of South East Europe” is to present selected economic information in a simple and comprehensible way to decision-makers of diverse professional background....

  • Publication
  • Publication Social and Economic Justice

New Perspectives on a Longer Working Life in Croatia and Slovenia

The 27 member states of the European Union are facing, among other structural challenges, a new reality of demographic changes to a dramatic degree. At present, a much higher percentage of the population has a life expectancy exceeding...

  • Publication
  • Publication Social and Economic Justice

Reframing Social Policy - Actors, Dimensions and Reforms

Like elsewhere in the region of Southeast Europe, the support for future membership in the EU among the population of Macedonia is very high, about 80–90%. The citizens’ aspirations are focusing a lot on the economic and social prospects...

  • Publication
  • Publication Progressive Peace Policy

Monitoring the Implementation of Minority Rights on the Local Level

During the ongoing process of European integration or, in other words, as a result of their striving for accession to the European Union, all states in Southeast Europe have been subjected to specific sets of monitoring their...

  • Publication
  • Publication Progressive Peace Policy

The Balkans, On War, Peace and Europe

The larger the European Union becomes, the fewer are the countries left outside its borders cherishing the hope of membership. For the Western Balkans, the question is what kind of European future lies ahead. The accession of Romania and...

  • Publication

Current News from Southeast Europe

The divided situation in the region has not substantially been improved over the past few years. This applies to both sides of the social partnership. On the trade-union side there is but little change. In Albania, the two trade union...

  • Publication
  • Publication Progressive Peace Policy

The Western Balkans on the Road towards European Integration

The enlargement* of the EU from 15 to 25 states, on 1 May 2004, has been a spectacular success, pointing to the enormous transformative power of the prospect of European integration. Now that the Central and East European Countries...

  • Publication
  • Social Democratic Politics and Values

Organizational Structures and Internal Party Democracy in South Eastern Europe

The enhancement and development of internal party democracy and democratically functioning party organizational structures are burning issues within the consolidating democracies of South Eastern Europe. Autocratic political leaders and...

  • Publication
  • Publication Social and Economic Justice

Reforming Local Public Administration

The regional office of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) in Zagreb, in cooperation with the office of FES in Bulgaria, organized a workshop in Sofia inApril 2004 on the issue of public administration on the local and regional level. The...

  • Publication
  • Publication Social and Economic Justice

How to Improve Development on Local Level

In the context of the Stability Pact for South-East Europe and in cooperation with the national institutions, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) initiated in spring 2001 a regional project “Local Self-Government and Decentralization in...