Novi Sad: The Trans European Forum Started

Dejan Georgievski and Predrag Vostinic

30 April 2004

The first Trans-European Forum started in Novi Sad, Vojvodina, yesterday, with events organized by kuda.org and the Citizens Pact for the SEE.

Although the official opening of the Trans European Forum will be held today, at 11:00 hours, several events and conferences were held yesterday, under the auspices of the Forum.

The Citizens' Pact for the Southeast Europe organized two events on the first day of the forum. First, at the Faculty of Economy in Novi Sad, where a debate was organized under the title "24 Hours to the EU Enlargement - New Opportunities (and Threats) for the Western Balkans".

The Citizens' Pact has invited the Ambassador of OSCE in Serbia and Montenegro, Maurizio Massari , and the Ambassador of the United Kingdom to SCG, David Gowen, who discussed the issue of EU Enlargement and the opportunities it would bring to Serbia and Montenegro with the students of the Faculty of Economy and other interested citizens. Both Massari and Gowen emphasized the importance of the Copenhagen Criteria for EU membership and the cooperation with the ICTY in the Hague. Then, the audience was given a chance to ask questions.

Later, the Citizens Pact for SEE moved to the Novi Sad City Council, to the "Municipality Network Meeting of the Citizens' Pact for South Eastern Europe" seminar, chaired by Branislav Vorkapic, the Executive Director of Osijek based organjization, OGI, active in the field of local development.

The participants in the conference discussed the importance of local and regional initiatives in the processes of European Integration. As Miljenko Torniski from the Local Democracy Agency - Osijek said, it is �often forgotten that after the state structures complete the negotiations with the EU, the bulk of the actual implementation falls on the local structures.� The speakers also talked about the role of the media and NGOs in the process of fostering local cross-border cooperation, and Daniel Stojanovic, independent expert on local development, said that the democratisation should start at the micro level, with every individual citizen adopting the goal of integrative processes, otherwise, all the work of the bigger structures will be in vain.

They also said that it is important that nothing should be left out, and that every missed chance invites the intervention of oponents of democratization and integration processes, who �may be a few, but inaction gives them more powerfull voice� in the words of Torniski.

The participants of the Meeting also were addressed by the Mayors of the Dutch city of Redden, and the Czech city of Cheb, who spoke of their experiences with cross border cooperation. A letter of greetings from the Civitas Fair that is held parallel to this event, was read to the participants in the meeting.

Earlier, Kuda.org New Media Center, (one of the organizers of the three day event, together with the V2_Institute fo the Unstable Media, the Citizens Pact for SEE and Cultural Center Novi Sad), opened the programme with the "Connected Art Workers' Stream" workshop mediated by Guy Van Belle, from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The workshop was held at the facilities of kuda.org.