European Dilemmas. Central Europe: An Active Partner or a Passive Spectator?"
The mission of the Forum is to provide opportunity for exchange of views, experiences, concepts and ideas for the representatives of the most important fields of public, social and economic life.
The Economic Forum in Krynica is the place where East meets West, is a highly recognized event in Central and Eastern Europe. Its mission is to create a favorable climate for development of political and economic collaboration between the EU and its neighbors. The Forum is attend by 2000 participants from approximately 60 countries from Europe, Asia, America and Africa, including state and government leaders, ministers, Members of Parliament, heads of central banks, stock exchanges and government agencies as well as numerous representatives of business circles, experts, economic and non-governmental organizations.
The discussions and debates are held during the Forum both on and behind the stage. Everyone contributes to the discussions, the harshest critics as well.
Thus the forum provides an opportunity to solve the most complicated problems. The Forum’s agenda includes more than 130 debates divided into following thematic fields:
- Business and Management
- Macroeconomics
- New Economy
- Science and Culture
- Fuels and Energy
- International Affairs and Security
- EU and its Neighbors
- Regions
- Society
- State and Reforms
Except for the subjects mentioned above, many other exciting issues were touched upon, examples including energy security, regional cooperation, prospects for expansion of banks and enterprises, future of institutional reforms, relations between company owners and the management boards, freedom of capital flow.
Eastern Institute as an organizer of Economic Forum publishes special report New Europe. Report on Transformation. New Europe. Report on Transformation is an annual exceptional encyclopedic publication presenting a comprehensive analysis of economic and political situation in 28 countries of Central, Eastern and South East Europe as well as in the former Soviet republics, placing particular emphasis on the major economic and political problems as well as challenges facing individual countries. The common feature of these states is the fact that prior to 1989 they formed the Eastern Bloc of totalitarian communist states and in 1989-1991 they launched major political reforms, which aimed at development of democracy as well as competitive market economy integrated with global market.
The Forum keeps expanding. This year, the main conferences in Krynica were accompanied by a Forum of Regions in Muszyna, an Investment Forum in Tarnow, and an Economic Forum of Young Leaders in Nowy Sacz.
EVENTS:
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk took part in the opening the 18th Economic Forum in Krynica. During the ceremony the head of government assured that East-Central European countries could be equal partners for the world’s biggest economies.
During his speech Tusk announced that Poland will enter the Euro zone in 2011.
"I lay in front of entrepreneurs the following promise. Our government is determined to introduce new currency", said the Prime Minister. After these short statements the zloty currency jumped 1.6 percent - it strengthened against Euro for about 7 groszy - from about 3,47 to 3,40 which happens very rarely.
The Deputy Prime Minister of Georgia, Giorgi Baramidze, who was a speaker in the Forum's discussion panel entitled "NATO after Bucharest. Transatlantic Prospects of Ukraine and Georgia" , asked European and Euro-Atlantic societies to do not agree to any compromise when considering the independence and territorial integrity of his country.
The panel, whose speakers were, the above mentioned, Giorgi Baramidze, Bogdan Klich - Minister of the Defense Ministry of Poland, Jiri Sedivy - Assistant Secretary General, NATO Czech Republic, Mehmet Vecdi Gonul - Minister of the Ministry of National Defense of Turkey, Pjer Simunovic - Director, Defense Policy, Ministry of Defense of Croatia, Leonid Kozhara - the Deputy Head of the Committee for Foreign Affairs, Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The participants of the panel were also Oleksandr Sushko - Research Director, Institute of Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, Ukraine and Adrien Abecassis - Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France was moderated by Theodossis Georgiou (President, Greek Association for Atlantic and European Cooperation, Greece),
During this discussion panel, devoted to Euro-Atlantic aspiration on Georgia and Ukraine, Giorgi Baramidze underlined readiness of Tbilisi to make a compromise with Russia under the condition that such an agreement would not concern neither the sovereignty nor integrity of his country. It was also stated by him that neither Georgia nor Ukraine, under no circumstances, are to return to the Russian Empire. On the contrary - as soon as possible, they should enter the enlargement process of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Leonid Kozhara, held different opinion on this issue. He was persuading that Ukraine should not aim at fast integration with NATO. The Ukrainian politician was convinced that the key to the security of Europe was Russia. According to Kozhara, the relationship between Ukraine and NATO should depend on the relationship between Kiev and Moscow. Furthermore it was also emphasized that most of the citizens of Ukraine don not support its accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The following panel whose moderator was Theodossis Georgiou, entitled "The Southeastern Europe towards European and Euroatlantic Integration: The Role of the International Community" , was participated by Erhard Busek - Chairman, Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe, Austria, Veton Surroi - Publisher, KOHA Media Group, Albania, Dusan T. Batakovic - Ambassador, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, Jean Rannou - President, EuroDefense France and Andrey Klimov - Deputy Chairman of the Committee on International Affairs, The State Duma, Russia.
Aliki Mitsakos was a commentator of the panel devoted to "Role of Women in Democratization" . The panel moderated by Ildiko Voller- Szenci (Director, SME Women(Small and Medium Entrepreneurs), Hungary) was honored by a special guest - the Former President of Sri Lanka, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. The other participants of the panel were: Zehra Odyakmaz - Administrative Law Lecturer, Gazi University of Turkey, Elzbieta Jakubiak - Chairman, Physical Culture and Sports Committee, Sejm of the Republic of Poland, Milka Forcan - Vice-President, Delta Holding, Serbia and Maria Svensson - President, Culture Clinic (NGO), Sweden.
The Economic Forum of Young Leaders - the Forum’s partner program - attracts young leaders from Europe to discuss vital issues and challenges facing Europe as well as the role of the young generation in transformations in Europe and Asia. Shaping the European Union’s Future is one of the key challenges for the young generation of the EU.
The Economic Forum of Young Leaders has officially finished with an agreement supporting the citizenship education of young people in Georgia. The agreement between the organizers of the Forum and the Caucasus University was signed in the presence of Deputy Prime Minister Giorgi Baramidze. "Common multinational projects, internships and trainings, as well as the support for non-governmental are the specific measurement of the Forum in Nowy Sącz" -Baramidze summed up the agreement.
The situation in the aftermath of the conflict in Georgia was one of the main topics of the Economic Forum of Young Leaders. During four days, over 300 young leaders of political, economic, social, and non-governmental organizations from 42 countries from the European Union, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus took part in the four-day Forum in Nowy Sącz.
According to the participants, the Forum establishes the role of the young generation within the social and economic changes taking place on the Eurasian
Continent.
That is why the voice of young people concerning the events in the South Caucasus was also audible during the Forum. The participants asked the politicians about the consequences of the Caucasus conflict for the economic development of Europe and whether the safety of ordinary citizens of the Old Continent is threatened.
The substantial value and organizational success of annual editions allows us to describe the Forum as one of the most important international events of young generation.
During the Forum in Krynica the panelists tried to find answers to such questions as: what is the place in Europe for countries, which after years of efforts became rightful EU members? What was the impact of the enlargement on the situation in other European states? What will be the political and economic role of Central European states in Europe? How can they seize coming up chances? What should they avoid? Is the EU ready to invite new members?
The need of a debate on the above and many other, up-to-date topics was confirmed by a great interest among the Partners of the Economic Forum, who touched on the most interesting for them issues, proposing topics for a large number of discussions and inviting to them outstanding specialists.
This year’s Forum was also enriched by a cultural program, which included, among other things, meetings with authors, exhibitions and concerts.
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