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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

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PTD: Why we should care about demography - Population trends in Southeast Europe

In around 30 years, formerly communist Central and Southeastern Europe have lost millions of people, probably unseen in peacetime. The Western Balkans lost 1.3% of their population in 2018 alone. Planning adequate social policies in...

  • Publication
  • Publication Political Trends & Dynamics

Political Trends & Dynamics: Why we should care about demography - Population trends in SEE

In around 30 years, formerly communist Central and Southeastern Europe have lost millions of people, probably unseen in peacetime. The Western Balkans lost 1.3% of their population in 2018 alone. Planning adequate social policies in...

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  • Publication Social and Economic Justice
  • Publication Social Democratic Politics and Values

Workers without borders? : The rights of workers from the Balkans in the EU

EU citizens and Third Country Nationals are formally in very different situations when it comes to their mobility and rights in the European Union. However, this binary picture looks much more blurred when workers from Southeast Europe...

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  • News
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  • Publication Political Trends & Dynamics

Political Trends and Dynamics: The Russian invasion of Ukraine: what consequences for Southeast Europe?

Europe is regrettably witnessing a return of war. Russia’s assault on Ukraine, a sovereign European nation, is likely to become the largest European conflict in decades, which has brought back horrors from the past, already taken a...

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  • Publication Political Trends & Dynamics

Political Trends and Dynamics: The Russian invasion of Ukraine: what consequences for Southeast Europe?

Consequences of the war in Ukraine are felt well beyond its borders, and the circumstances have already caused unprecedented shifts in foreign policy across the continent. This issue of Political Trends and Dynamics in Southeast Europe...

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  • Publication Social Democratic Politics and Values

Western Balkans Manifesto on the Future of Europe

In the context of the Conference, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Dialogue Southeast Europe and the Austro-French Center for Rapprochement in Europe launched Western Balkans Perspectives on the Future of Europe in 2020. The outcome of the...

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  • Publication Socio-ecological transformation in SEE

IETO: Inclusive Energy Transition in Southeast Europe as an Opportunity

Inclusive energy transition includes the concept of just transition but also goes beyond it, encompassing the energy democracy and the involvement of the public. Just transition planning must be carried out from the bottom up, led by the...

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  • Publication Social Democratic Politics and Values

Personalization of Politics - A comparative analysis of the impacts on democratization and autocratization in Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro

Politics around Europe are becoming one-men (rarely women) shows. From the likes of Orban and Janša to Vučić and Đukanović – the political influence seems to be vested deeply in the capacities and wills of an individual. Trends like...

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  • Publication Political Trends & Dynamics

Political Trends and Dynamics: Diplomacy in Southeast Europe

Third edition of Political Trends and Dynamics and the last one in 2021 offers insights on diplomacy in Southeast Europe – one of the critical tools in state arsenal for navigating through the international arena, for better or for...

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  • Publication Socio-ecological transformation in SEE

PEET: The Political Economy of Energy Transition in Southeast Europe - Barriers and Obstacles

Nine countries, one region: a first-of-its-kind political economy study on the barriers to an environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable energy transition in SEE and how to overcome them. The study offers understanding of...