The European Commission, in cooperation with the World Bank, is hosting a two-day conference in Brussels on 6 and 7 December 2010 to discuss how the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) can be improved to have the most positive impact on the progress of the Western Balkans, Turkey and Iceland towards the European Union. The conference will also address cross-border cooperation in the Western Balkans. The conference will look at the challenges facing the Western Balkans and Turkey and the role of financial assistance in their path to EU membership. Iceland will also participate to the conference.
The conference will outline the post crisis difficulties faced by candidate countries and potential candidates and the need for deeper partnerships between the EU, the European financial institutions and the World Bank to help them meet these challenges. It is an occasion to discuss with candidate countries and potential candidates their own assessments of needs for preparing for EU accession, and for achieving broader development aims, macro-economic stability and sustainable growth. The participants will examine how political and economic support, EU financial assistance and other donor financial support can be made more coherent and mutually reinforcing; and how IPA can be further improved to support sustainable results and impacts.
The conference will also be used to launch a stakeholder’s consultation on the future of pre-accession assistance after 2013. Participants will have the opportunity to set the tone for the debate on what form EU financial mechanisms should take in order to best assist sustainable change and efficient reforms that benefit the citizens of the Western Balkans, Turkey and Iceland. The second day focuses on cross-border cooperation between the Western Balkan countries. This meeting will take stock of the regional efforts and achievements during the period 2007-2010, and discuss future prospects for cross-border cooperation in the region. There is a large interest in the conference, which gathers over 450 participants, among whom ministers and senior officials from beneficiaries of the Western Balkans, Turkey, and Iceland as well donor agencies, international financial institutions and civil society organizations.
No comments:
Post a Comment