Publications

In this issue we try to answer a few crucial questions on the future of regional cooperation and EU accession from four different standpoints (the Albanian, Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian). How do the four mentioned states and their foreign policies accept the imperative of good neighborly cooperation as a condition for the accession processes.

Minority political participation is where minority rights and social attitudes towards minorities meet. Conventionally, minority rights include approaches to avoid discrimination and affirm cultural distinctiveness of the community. Minority rights have experienced substantial progress over the past decade. From a marginal topic during the Cold War, they have entered mainstream debates and instruments of human rights. The establishment of the High Commissioner on National Minorities of the OSCE, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe and the Copenhagen Criteria for the admission of new members to the EU each provided for substantial advances in the promotion of minority rights.

The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the Center for Prevention and European Values (former Initiative for Peace-building and Democracy) in 2004 launched a project entitled “Partners in Peace and Prevention” which aimed at endorsing the concept of conflict prevention in order to raise awareness and social responsibility of the beneficiaries in the process of peace-building, democratization and integration. This conference was a continuation of the previous regional conferences “Prevention through Integration” and “Regional Perspective on Prevention-Stability, Human Security and Development”, which took place in Skopje, November 2005 and 2006 respectively, under the same project. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Macedonia…

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. This Brochure is focused on reviewing certain economic indicators and, more specifically, the flat tax rates /FTR/ regiments, if any, applied in different states in the region of the South East Europe - SEE. As there is no agreed use of the term “South East Europe” due to different reasons, the countries, which are subject to this brochure, in alphabetical order, are the following: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia – a total…

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 75-80 years than 10 to 15 years ago, which is good news to most of us. The trouble starts when one looks at the figures to find out that the younger population in comparison with the older population is stagnating, if not shrinking.

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 for themselves and their children. This aspiration is mainly based on the huge difference in economic living conditions between Southeast Europe and the “old EUmember-states” and at the same time the extreme difference between rich and poor in SEE. The Gini-Index of Macedonia for example - based on the Human development report of the UN in 2006 - is with an indicator of 39 the worst in Europe (but Portugal as an EU-member state being close to it). Huge parts of the population hope that this situation could…

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 performances, not only by the European Union, but also by other international bodies, such as the Council of Europe. The issue of majority-minorities relations have been and continue to be a sensitive one in Southeast Europe, but also beyond this region. It is today a precondition for accession to the European Union to solve potential inter-ethnic conflicts and to balance the system in a way that makes the relations between the majority and ethnic or national minorities one of mutual acceptance and respect, based upon…

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 Bulgaria to the EU together with the progress made by Croatia and Macedonia on the road to Brussels could serve as further encouragement to the remaining Balkan states to pursue their transformation process; political progress would be followed by an economic upswing which could have a positive impact on the employment situation and the struggle against poverty. Tensions between the ethnic communities would no longer be served up to explain domestic calamities or to justify political decisions. We are in…